Basket Case
by Kaitsurinu
Summary: UPDATE 1/26/03! A voodoo spell goes wrong and Heero feels the effects, literally. Will a secret war for his affection cause Heero to crack, or more accurately, lose his own body? 1x2/2x1 3x4 Pg13/Shounen-ai/Maybe Yaoi/
1. Geek Stink Breath

Basket Case  
Chapter 1: Geek Stink Breath  
  
  
"Mustn't… fall… asleep…"  
Quatre was sitting down on the floor besides Trowa, his shoulders slumped. Even from this angle Duo could see him closing his eyes. In a very undefined way, Quatre suddenly tipped over and fell asleep soundly against Trowa. The oddly banged pilot didn't flinch or move away. He just kept staring at the old black and white movie the Gundam pilots had found in Peacemillion. All five of them had been bored out of their mind. They couldn't attack until the situation was clear.   
So now, Duo and Quatre had convinced their more stoic friends to watch an old 40's movie.  
Duo yawned and, lying down, stretched his legs out on the couch. Heero growled as he bumped him and forced the American's foot away. Another growl came as Duo's foot hit the back of Wufei's head and he also shoved it away.   
"Hn!' Duo squeaked._ /Like a bunch of old dogs. Maybe the fleas are agitating them…/ _The American, his face lit by the dancing white and black from the screen, curled his legs back up under the blanket and kept to his side of the couch. For the rest of the vaguely familiar noir film, Duo couldn't help but feel eyes bearing at his. He'd always had a somewhat sharp sixth sense, at least since he had lived on the streets. Of course, whenever he looked there was no one looking.  
_ /Oh, whatever…/_  
Duo turned back around just as the pretty girl kissed the handsome guy in the trench coat. For some reason he didn't blink or slightly draw away like he usually did. Don't get him wrong, Duo knew the whole sex thing, but ever since he was a kid he'd always covered his eyes and stuck out his tongue going "Blah!" It was just fun.  
_ /And with these… party animals… around, a little fun doesn't hurt. / _His violet eyes flashed at Heero for a split second. _ /Hell, Heero needs more fun than I do. /_ A smile. Devilish. _/Maybe I could give him some fun. Even better than the people in the movies are doing. /_  
Duo had lots of fun teasing Heero in a flirtatious way. Heero, detaching himself from emotion, probably never had experienced love or much less paid attention to it, the cold thing. It made Duo laugh whenever that confused, on-the-verge-of-a-nosebleed look came across his face. Most of time anyway Duo didn't think Heero even understood the forwardness…  
_**/Fun…. No need for fun. In the way of the mission…/**_  
A different voice. Deeper. Flatter. And was that vulnerability?  
_/What the fuck?! That's not me! And it's in my head! /_  
_**/Duo? /**_  
Duo, who had instantly snapped his eyes open once he had heard the mysterious voice, suddenly grabbed at his head as sharp reverberation cut his brain. The voice seemed to just cut off like a phone hanging up. And it left a painful wave in his mind. Not even close enough to make him scream, but enough to make him notice. The American forced his eyes open again. He was curled into the arm of the couch and nobody had noticed. At least Trowa and Wufei hadn't. And Quatre was asleep. Heero still stared ahead but seemed a bit stiffer and his eyes kind of darted around. But Duo shrugged it off.  
_ /Well, if I know Heero, he's probably sleeping with his eyes open and dreaming he's fighting someone./ _  
He blinked his eyes. They were a bit blurred and he couldn't really focus on the screen. But it didn't matter; he hadn't paid attention from the start.  
The American groggily stood up on the couch and left for the small kitchen in the apartment-type room. It was directly behind the living room where the movie was playing so Duo could watch if he wanted. Right now a coke would solve all his problems. Not to mention keep him up. The teenager opened the fridge and welcomed the cool mist on his skin. He grabbed a can and snapped it easily open.   
After a few numb swigs, he could feel the spicy, sweet taste of the pop fizzing in his mouth.   
On the couch, Heero felt his skin cool then his mouth get hot and moist suddenly.  
Duo jauntily leaned against the counter and watched the blurry noir film from afar. It suddenly sparked and the tape came to a rough halt. The old VCR had eaten the tape. Quatre jerked awake as the abrasive noise filled the living room.  
"I told you we should have just watched Cowboy Bebop," Duo said sarcastically.  
"Never!" Wufei objected. "I refuse to watch your stupid porn cartoons, Maxwell."  
Duo slammed down his pop can, already finished, and snapped back. "It ain't porn! Anime is cool, Wuffie, especially the mecha stuff… Although, the outfits are a tad bit PG-13…"  
"Shhh. Quatre's asleep." Trowa calmly interrupted the daily fight between the Asian and American. He gently picked up the sleeping kid, who lolled his head against his neck, and walked down the hall to their bunk beds.  
Duo watched the thin pilot carry Quatre to bed, and said, "I'm beginning to question those two's 'friendship.'"  
Wufei said nothing, just stood up and turned off the ancient TV set. Duo snickered as he accidentally ripped the knob off and angrily tossed it onto the couch as he passed by. "I'm going to bed, too." He glared back at Duo. "And I don't want jelly poured in my bed again, Maxwell."  
"Oh, then you better clean it out first!" Duo gave his most innocent, Quatre-style smile and fluttered his short eyelashes.   
The Chinese boy just threatened with another harsh look then disappeared into the dark hallway. The American began to wonder how all these people didn't step on the crushed-on-the-head coke cans he'd left by his bed. Then he smiled as he heard a yelp of pain from Wufei.  
"Oi, Heero, will you watch Cowboy Bebop with me?" He sat back down on the couch with another coke and looked over to the other pilot, resting his elbows on the back of the couch. "I think this is the one where Spike runs around shooting people and getting really bloodied up. Ya hear that? Blood and guns; right up your alley."  
The Japanese boy didn't answer. His fierce glare turned from the black screen to Duo and for another second, he twisted up his face a bit. Duo watched him as he took a drink of his coke. Suddenly, he reached up and tipped the end of Duo's coke until he could see the black print on the bottom and he spilled some on Duo's chin. Heero tried to ignore the wet sensation on his skin.  
"This expired a month ago," Heero stated flatly. He took his hand away.  
Duo wiped the pop off his chin and shook his hand dry. "So? How's a little expired pop going to stop the great Shinigami?" The American sat Indian style on the couch and took another deep swig at the coke.   
Heero waited. _/Ichi… Ni… San… Yon… Go…/_  
Duo jerked forward, with a giant spit take all over the floor. He threw the can to the floor and grabbed at his throat, feeling something vulgar scrape. There had been something lumpy in that can, definitely not pop, and he had swallowed it! Purple eyes crossed and a lurching stomach unhappy, he scrambled off the couch and was in the bathroom instantly.  
Heero watched coldly as his comrade left and turned his head slightly as the light from the bathroom flooded the murky room. The door shut and it was murky again. He did flinch though when he heard the noises Maxwell was making. "Serves him right," Heero commented and stood up from the couch. He was just picking up the can when a vulgar, stinging taste came clawing at his throat. He paused, then realized. With a quick clamp over his mouth, Heero dashed into the kitchen. His stomach lurched and screamed in disgust, even though he hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. Heero leaned over the sink and… well, saw his breakfast again.  
After Duo's coughing and puking fit, he still felt awful. He hoped he never find out exactly what he'd just downed, cuz it still tasted funny in his stomach. He flushed the toilet and took his glass from the medicine cabinet and washed his mouth out several times. _/Gawd…/_ he thought to himself. _/All the Orbit free gum in the Western Hemisphere couldn't get rid of this taste…Got to remember to sue Coca-Cola for this…/ _  
The American spit out the last bit of water and bad taste he could and washed out the cup before returning it to the cabinet. He flicked off the lights and scratched his hip as he returned to the living room. He blinked a few times before noticing Heero wasn't on the couch. Not noticing the faint background noise, he picked up his thrown pop can and dried the floor a little with his foot.  
"Guess Hee-chan went to bed," Duo said nonchalantly.  
"Don't… call me that…"   
"Heero?" Duo turned around and saw the thin boy hunched over the sink and his abdomen lurching crazily. The American rushed over to him and put his hand on Heero's shoulder. "Jeeze, what happened bud? Oh man, that's nasty." Duo looked to Heero, who still looked sick, almost as sick as if he had eaten the bad coke. He put his arm around his shoulder and led the sick pilot back to the couch. Heero, who had probably never been sick in his life or thrown up for that matter, coughed and gagged on the bad taste.  
Duo sat him down and ran to get Heero's glass from the medicine cabinet.  
Heero slumped over into himself, curling into his still convulsing stomach. He didn't like it, the way he tasted. His breath even stuck himself hard. The pilot, Prussian eyes a bit dazed, lay down on the couch and pondered why the hell he had thrown up.  
"Come on, Yuy, up." Duo's voice was firm and reminded Heero of a mother when he returned, glass of water in hand. "I'm not going to hand feed you this like Quatre." Obediently, he sat up.  
Duo handed the glass of water to Heero, who turned away to drink it. Suddenly, he felt Duo's hand on his forehead and jerked away. Water tipped over the lip and a dark blot appeared on his green tank.  
"Chill out, Heero! I was just checking your temperature," Duo said protectively, with a little laugh as Heero gave the expression of a stubborn two-year-old. "Sit still Toddler. I just wanna make sure you don't have the flu or something."  
"I'm not sick." Heero glared at the American who sat on the other side of the couch. He took the glass and finished it.  
"Then why did you throw up?" Duo inquired sincerely, taking the empty glass back.  
Heero didn't answer. He stared at the stain on his tank and then folded his arms over it.  
Duo smiled. _/Who says the Perfect Soldier's all grown up? /_  
The American moved closer on the couch and offered his blanket. "I'm sorry," he apologized as the soldier took the blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders. "I probably should have warned you I was going to do it. Just let me check, 'Kay?"  
Heero didn't move. "Fine," he grumbled.  
Habitually biting his tongue, Duo put his hand under Heero's wild bangs and tested the warmth of his skin. The soldier flinched, automatically getting a signal from his subconscious to break Duo's arm in three places. _/Can't do that…_/ he knew. _/He's just helping. Besides, he's a comrade and is needed if we get called to our posts./_  
Duo moved his hand around a little, putting his knuckles against his temple as well. "Hmm," he murmured, taking his hand away.  
"Nani?"  
"Well, you're fine like always," Duo said with a bit of confusion. He was no doctor but it still seemed weird. Heero was normal temperature. It was even weirder that they had made some Technicolor yawns at the same time. "Bah, I don't get it."  
Heero obviously felt guilty as Duo stood up to wash out the sink. He sunk deeper in to the blanket, ashamed of committing such a weak, human action. Duo noticed and winked one eye sheepishly. "Don't worry," he reassured him. "It's only human to get sick once in a while. Hey, whatever doesn't kill ya only makes you stronger, Soldier."  
"But I'm perfect. Nothing like this is supposed to happen." Heero tried to squeeze out the wetness from his shirt.  
"A little tough on ourselves, aren't we?" Duo called from the kitchen. The American winced at the sight of what was left of breakfast. Luckily, it was mostly water. Duo knew how strict Dr. J was on Heero's diet and he couldn't remember Heero ever eating very much. Maybe he was anorexic.  
When Duo went back to the couch, his comrade had fallen asleep already. Duo tilted his head and frowned when he saw that he had kicked off the blanket and had his head on the armrest.   
_/That kid's really rough on himself, isn't he? He would sleep on nails someone said so. /_  
The American watched Heero's chest rise and fall, and occasionally, his abdomen twitch. Then as he moved his eyes down, saw his untied shoes were still on his feet. Like a mother, he sighed then gently slipped them off and put them to the side of the couch. Heero's toes curled up instantly and he murmured in his sleep. Duo wickedly smiled and had to resist the temptation to paint his toenails the colors of the rainbow. He decided that Hee-chan had been through enough and put the blanket back on him.  
Duo strolled back to the bathroom, washed and put away Heero's glass and went to his own bunk for the night.  
Heero's eyes snapped open and he sat back up. He'd been awake the entire time.  
  
Relena bit her lip and turned at the wall to make another round of pacing. Her eyes locked on the door, then the phone, and then the piece of paper beside it. Systematically, she checked the mail, the e-mail, and beeper, anything that could be used for communicating. She was getting worried. She flipped her ponytail behind her, which she had been combing with her fingers as she paced.  
"Why hasn't he said anything?" she whispered to herself. "Didn't it work? Did he get called to battle? Does he hate me? Did he get killed?"   
In her pacing, Relena had neglected to look at the clock, and when she finally did look, it was well past midnight. The blonde only bit her lip again, but she soon stopped. "He must be asleep."  
She sat down beside her phone again and impatiently ran her dainty finger along the screen, tapping with her newly done nails. Worry balled up in her throat, like a cockaburra stuck to a dog's fur. Her aqua-bluish eyes darted down to the notepad. In her finely written cursive, she had a phone number written down. Fury came and replaced the worry.  
What if that woman's spell hadn't worked? What if she was just a fraud? After all, Paegan had warned her of gypsy ladies, respectfully declaring them all non-sense. But she just couldn't resist… It must have worked! It must have!  
_/Maybe he's too shy… or, what if the spell wasn't strong enough?/_  
Relena Darlian couldn't wait any longer. She wanted a phone call, a romantic letter, a sweet little message, two strong arms around her, anything and everything! And she wanted it now.  
The blonde tapped her fingers along the keyboard and decided to retry that voodoo.  
  
  
----  
oooooh, relena-bitch has plans.... 0;) see that's an angel face. I don't know how to make a devil face yet }: ) hey, there's one!  
Please review people! I'm not asking for like 6 billion reviews! Just tell me what you want and I give it. Well, maybe not everything, but I don't have a lot planned for this fic... I could go 3x4 or 4x3, whatever hits your buttons, a little more... I think I'm gonna rate this R so I get enough requests for yaoi, I'll have room to write. ^__^ Kudasai, shai mochi desu! (Did I say that right? Aw crap, forgot how to do particles...) Anyway, please tell me what you think! I don't know where I'm going with this...  
I've decided to post the lyrics of the song that's the chapter title.  
  
  
I'm on a mission  
I made my decision  
To lead a path of self destruction  
A slow progression  
Killing my complexion  
And it's rotting out my teeth  
  
I'm on a roll  
No self comtrol  
I'm blowing off steam with methamphetamine  
Don't know what I want  
That's all that I've got  
And I'm picking scabs off my face  
  
Every hour my blood is turning sour  
And my pulse is beating out of time  
I found a treasure  
filled with sick pleasure  
And it sits on a thin white line  
  
I'm on a roll  
No self comtrol  
I'm blowing off steam with methamphetamine  
Don't know what I want  
That's all that I've got  
And I'm picking scabs off my face  
  
I'm on a mission  
I got no decision  
Like a cripple running the rat race  
Wish in one hand shit in the other  
And see which one gets filled first  
  
I'm on a roll  
No self comtrol  
I'm blowing off steam with methamphetamine  
Don't know what I want  
That's all that I've got  
And I'm picking scabs off my face  
  



	2. Rest

Basket Case  
Chapter 2: Rest  
  
  
Quatre Winner woke up to the warming aroma of coffee and tea being fixed in the kitchen, as he did habitually. The blonde brushed his hair a bit with his fingers and cleared it from his eyes. With a giddy step in his stride, he rushed out of bed and threw on his pinkish-shirt over his white tank. And, noticing how it had been folded neatly and stowed under his bunk, Quatre knew Trowa had taken it off for him.  
His feet padded along the cold floor and he glanced at Heero on the couch as he entered the living room/kitchen, still steamy with tea and coffee. Quatre, features muted by the dimness of the room, smiled and carefully walked up to the other pilot. With his lips still curled innocently, he buried the side of his face into a warm surface and instinctively wrapped his arms around a thin waist. No flinching, no drawing back, just strong, compassionate understanding and support like he had come to depend on. Quatre tightened his embrace on the other pilot, and after a warm hand squeeze back, the other took the coffee pot out and was about to return to the counter.  
"Quatre."  
"Trowa."  
"Quatre."  
A smile. Muffled laugh. "Trowa."  
"Quatre please let me have a cup of coffee."   
The blonde buried his nose into Trowa's strong back and rubbed his forehead there. "Hmmm, no," he murmured. "I wish I could stay here forever; no more missions."  
His green eyes focused on the little bonsai tree in the window and Trowa couldn't help but tilt his lips ever so slightly. Turning those emerald eyes to his koi, Trowa watched him from over his shoulder as Quatre hugged harder, trying to draw that seemingly endless warmth into him forever. He slowly put the coffee down.  
Quatre knew what that meant.  
After the standard exchange of five lip locks, with a French blurred somewhere in-between, the pilots broke finally from a deep kiss and Quatre buried his head briefly into the cove of Trowa's neck. For another few seconds of blissful silence, they stood there, with nothing moving or making a sound.   
"So… when will we tell them, Trowa? You know, Wufei, Duo, and Heero? It won't be a secret if we keep openly kissing for long," Quatre said, his breath clouding on Trowa's skin. It felt even warmer when it reflected back to his mouth.  
Trowa moved his arms around Quatre's shoulders and stared straight into those blue eyes. Those blue eyes stared right back. "If you're worried about being rejected, don't worry," he said confidently. Quatre reached up and kissed him lightly again.  
"I'm glad you're optimistic, Love, but it doesn't stop me from worrying," Quatre said. "Although, you probably are right. We're all comrades; I don't think we'll separate after all we've been through. Wufei has always been detached but would never abandon us and Duo and Heero…"  
"Quatre." Trowa suddenly went serious. Quatre sensed it instantly and cocked his head to side, still intimately close.  
"What?"  
"I don't think we'll have to worry about those two," he said softly, slowly easing away from Quatre, even if his innocent face displayed protest. He needed coffee to explain, which he knew he'd be doing for that statement. The oddly banged pilot finally eased Quatre's hand off his hip and got out a fresh cup of tea. Quatre accepted it and sat down at the counter. He could feel curious blue eyes and a question fresh in his mouth. As Trowa sat down at the counter, which overlooked the living room and the sleeping lump known as Heero Yuy, Quatre turned to him and leaned closer.  
"What did you mean by that?" He sipped a little coffee but his gaze never slipped from Trowa's green eyes. Trowa loved the way he was always focused on who he talked to, so sincere and respectful. Never faltering. Trowa could swim in those eyes.  
"I'm not sure if it's true, but I have been noticing it for a while," Trowa said softly, drinking his own strong coffee between speaking. "I can't help but see that same look in Duo's eyes that I noticed in yours a long time ago."  
"Are you serious?" Quatre put down his steaming tea.  
Trowa looked to his koibito. He licked some coffee from his lip after taking one more drink. Quatre didn't need him to answer, he could tell by the way he looked back. A maybe.  
The platinum blonde leaned onto his shoulder and once again cuddled against his neck, with both pale hands clasped around his teacup as he sipped it. "Love is a many splendid thing. We won't the only ones, will we?" he murmured. A pause, a head resting on blonde hair.   
"Maybe." Trowa rested his head even more against Quatre's and never once thought of stopping the romantic stuff. They sat there for a while longer, listening to the mechanics of Peacemillion run.  
"Trowa?" Quatre asked suddenly, breaking a long stretch of blissful morning stillness.  
"Yes?" he replied without moving.  
The Arabic pilot wrapped his arm around Trowa's hip and asked with the innocence of a child, "When can we get married?"  
Trowa laughed and kissed him on the cheek. "Soon."  
Their content breakfast was interrupted suddenly by the alerting of a new mail message by Heero's laptop, which sat only down the counter, closed. It sneaked in five annoying beeps before Trowa separated from Quatre and opened it. The screen flickered a metallic greenish-blue before a menu popped to life. Quatre curled his legs up onto the chair and watched from a far as Trowa skillfully navigated around Heero's security locks and opened the vidmessage.   
The dull black background Heero had installed was sharply contrasted as a smiling Duo Maxwell appeared on the screen, shoulders restrained and the familiar cockpit surrounding him. He wasn't quite as perky as Trowa expected him to be. His voice was lower and grumbly and the blackness around his eyes gave away that he hadn't slept very much. The oddly banged pilot glanced over to Heero on the couch, then back to the screen as he began talking.  
"Yo!"  
"Hello," Quatre replied, without realizing it wasn't in live time. Trowa tilted his lips.  
"Sorry 'bout leaving you guys behind. Me and Wufei are going to Earth…" Duo continued, giving his full expressions to the camera in the cockpit. He even threw his arms behind his head, one of his biggest mannerisms, and became Duo again, despite the sleepiness.  
Heero heard the word, "Earth," in his sleep and groaned, shifting over.  
"…to blow something up. I'm not sure yet; they haven't disclosed the target in case the message I send you is intercepted. I'm pretty sure it's something to do with a mobile suit factory. I'd tell you where, but then I'd have to be killed." A sheepish smile and laugh.  
Quatre smiled and sipped his tea.  
"Anyway, don't worry about us. Heero's been acting fluish lately, that's why he's on the couch if he hasn't already gotten up. He'll be a little temperamental but just give him some water and he'll calm down. Dr. J granted him the day off, too. Wing's still not completely fixed up yet and we'll finish the job. Be back by dinner. Ciao!" Duo flicked his hand in a salute and the vidmessage ended.  
By now Quatre had finished his tea, and shuffling over to the sink, cleaned it out and sat back down at the counter. Trowa closed the laptop, which reinstalled the security on itself with fierceness like Heero's, and went back to finishing his coffee at the counter as well. They conversed for a few more minutes, Quatre fantasizing over a wedding while his koibito watched his face light up. After the last of the coffee was downed, Trowa went to get dressed out of his sleeping clothes, a looser pair of jeans and yes, a turtleneck.  
The platinum blonde washed up and headed down to the Gundam hangar to reinstall some faulty equipment on Sandrock. Trowa said goodbye and left for his bunk to relax and count up the money he'd been stashing away for something special.  
Heero Yuy was still asleep and bare-footed on the couch at 11 A.M. The Japanese pilot, beginning to feel uncomfortable on the couch, continually shifted himself. To one side; the other; on his back; on his stomach; off his stomach, burying his face in the crack between cushions. His hair was slicked with sweat, even though he wasn't sick and wasn't at all drained. Even in the peace of sleep, his heart rate accelerated and the veins in his skin became more visible as his skin warmed as if from exercise. Heero was still confused about what was happening to him as he shunned dreams subconsciously.  
  
  
Relena was furious. Her fist slammed against the keyboard and the screen died. No answer. She suddenly cried out in pain, seeing she'd broke her nail. The teenager cursed again, blowing on and shaking her hand.  
"Miss Relena, are you alright in there?" Paegan's butler voice pierced through her door, above the crackling of the abused videophone.  
"Fine, thank you Paegan," she replied politely. She didn't want him worrying about her too much. If he discovered what she was attempting, there was no doubt he'd give her some stuffy lecture about leaving him alone. All she wanted was love. Relena still could picture his Prussian eyes as cold as ice. She knew with a deep passionate conviction that he was just frozen inside him self and needed to warm up in order to come out and confess his feelings.   
/_Heero… why are you resisting me? I know you must love me, else you would have killed me…_/  
The honey-haired girl left her room, ignoring the videophone's distress and told Paegan to call a mechanic to fix it. The butler bowed obediently and exited for the older phone in the living room. Then she began another long, thoughtful walk along that golden beach where she'd encountered Heero for the first time. If she were lucky, he'd be there for her, even though she knew he was out in space.  
  
  
Crackle. A bit of feedback, harsh to the ears. Duo's radio system was going again in the magnetic field of Earth. /_Damn, didn't I just fix that? _/   
The American pilot adjusted the collar on his flight suit to let the sweat cool out on his neck. Meanwhile, Wufei proceeded to feed the briefing through the radio. It blurred his words and Duo kicked at the cockpit console a bit. The radio wavered then finally picked up Nakatu's signal clearly.  
"There's a new mobile suit factory operating in Brazil. We need to destroy it before it gets a shipment of mercury and gundanium, or preferably both. We have intercepted some data that says they're planning to some how fuse the mercury into their weapons. Location unknown. They've hidden it somewhere in the rainforest with the help of some natives." Wufei's voice was strained with anger. "We'll have to find it first."  
Shifting his violet eyes around the text displayed on his screen displaying information on the cargo truck carrying the load, Duo sighed. He ran his fingers through his hair. "Is there anyway we can do that without ripping up that rainforest?"  
Crackle. Nakatu came on Deathscythe's monitors on the right as both Gundams powered toward the sleepy blue orb called Earth. "Yes. We'd have to use tracking devices, but stay above the canopy. They interfere."  
"Then we'd be sitting ducks!" Duo said twisting up his face.  
"Hn." Wufei grunted back and he saw the other Gundam surge forward a bit in anger.  
The American tapped his fingers lightly along the joystick, trying to get his creative juices flowing his head. It didn't help he was drowsy from helping Heero and hadn't slept much after going to bed. He had lay awake, still pondering the events of the night. Now it was catching up to him, though. Hard.  
"Can we uh… maybe just…" Even Duo could feel himself slurring.  
"Maxwell, wake up! This is a mission!"  
"Yeah, I'm up," he snapped back with a bit of frustration evident. "Just thinking."  
Another 'Hn.'  
Duo rubbed his lips and cheeks, a bit loose from the drowsiness. He felt like trying to just rub all his worries away, soon massaging his temples and piloting with one hand. "Uhnn," he groaned, "Can we set a trap?"  
"Maxwell, we're not going to come to us. We're attacking, onna!"  
"I'm not Anna…" Delirious.  
"Dammit, why did you come?"  
Duo slunk back against his cockpit seat, slumping his shoulders. Losing his posture let a bit of tension flow out of his muscles and into nothing and he soon found himself closing his eyes. "I don't know Wufei, something's making me tired. I swear… I was fine a while ago…"  
"That American pop of yours is poison, I told you that," he remarked bitterly.  
Duo growled deep in his throat. /_Knock it off Wufei…_/  
/_**…Hn…. **_/  
The voice again. It came with a sharp buzz in Duo's brainwaves then when the buzz died off, that rough, exhausted voice grunted sleepily.   
/_Oh, you again. You sound tired…_/  
Duo still slumped against the seat, drifting maddenly between a trance, consciousness, and a weak, unsteady sleep.  
/_**Duo. **_/  
/What? What… do you want? I want to sleep…/  
_**/Duo.**_ /  
/No, no, shush. Too loud…/  
/**Duo!** /  
Duo didn't notice the rough voice in his head slowly blur into a bitter one snapping at him from the radio. His head filled with that painful hang up and he blinked open his violet eyes. They were misted but that didn't muffle the angry snaps of the Nakatu pilot.  
"Duo!"  
"Wha? Wha?" Duo bolted up. Wufei appeared on his screen, left eye almost into a furious twitch.  
"What the hell are you doing, baka?"  
The American averted his eyes away, locking them on his sweat-rivuleted hand clenched around the joystick. "I don't know… I think I'm aborting this one."  
The Chinese pilot frowned but realized it was for the best. With Duo acting undependable, it could mess up the mission, fatally. He clicked off the communication screen and switched back to radio, fed up with the American's weakness. He couldn't watch him sit there like a helpless child trying to fight away his sleepiness.  
"Just go back to Peacemillion, you weakling," he said, gunning the engine.   
Instinctively, Duo killed the engines on his Gundam and let it float in space, letting himself relax. He watched the other pilot disappear. He closed his violet eyes dotted with a fatigue that had come from nowhere and guided himself back to Peacemillion by the voices on the radio. He felt a cramp in his stomach and tightness through his entire soul. It felt like something was compacting him into himself, a building pressure in his chest and throat.  
"I hope we have aspirin."  
  
Heero Yuy woke the to slam of a door and Trowa Barton lifted his head and stashed a pile of substantial money. When the oddly banged pilot poked his head out and discovered a fatigued Duo standing nearly lifeless in the door, he relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief. He slipped the money under his pillow and went out to check on the American pilot. Heero stared at Duo, still sprawled on the furniture. He closed them again and fell asleep.  
"Duo, why are you back so early?" he inquired in a monotone voice.  
Duo stared at him as he walked up through the hallway, and then weakly smiled.  
"I need to relax. Don't worry," he reassured, trying to smile like he usually did. "Just a little drained."  
"Are you okay?" Trowa prodded again. A protectiveness that only Quatre saw shone through to Duo. "It's not like you to get sick.  
He weakly winked. "I'm fine." With that, he left the two stoic pilots, not bothering to even slip off his shoes as he entered the bathroom.  
The American didn't slip out of his skin tight, black flight suit and sat down in the dry tub. He numbly twisted the knob and steaming hot water stung and swarmed around his toes. It stung his skin but he didn't care. It felt like a warm arm extending all around him that promised to evaporate his worries away for a few minutes.  
Duo unbraided his hair and spread his legs through the clear water, soaking in the heat. The American fell into a conscious trance, staring at the water that flickered in the light. He closed his eyes and sighed.  
Trowa watched him disappear into the bathroom with no comment, just a watchfulness and concern. The oddly banged pilot sat down on one of the chairs and returned to an old novel he'd left by the TV. For another half-hour, he sat there, his concern alternately switching from Duo to Heero.  
He was alerted to another person in the room as Heero sat up groggily, at exactly 2:30 P.M. The Japanese pilot glanced at Trowa, locking into his green eyes. A flickering, steamy quality floated in Heero's eyes as he looked back, and his skin was gleaming with sweat and warmth.  
"Where's Duo?" he asked. Where the pilot had grown accustomed to another flicker of brainwaves in his mind, there was silence. A tight ball of worry was lodged in his throat, but at the same time, he felt a sensation of frightening limpness.  
Trowa didn't need to point.   
Through the light under the bathroom door, water came leaking out.  
  
  
  
  
----  
Oh, I'm sorry! I don't like ending on cliffhangers, but I had too. Fear is on! 0.0! Now there talking about this tunnel where poor little kids got stuck and *shiver* I'm getting too scared to write anymore. There's this big empty, dark basement behind me cuz my computer's down here. I'm sorry, but my pacing seemed a little off at the end. You will not believe how many times I redid this chapter. -0-... I must have had 6 different beginnings, not counting this one. If you're a fan of green day, you would have noticed the theme. The titles and chapters are all green day titles. If you read the lyrics, they sometimes go with the chapter. "Rest" goes almost perfectly, I think with this. THANK YOU for all the reviews. I'm so happy that I got 12! ^-^ kind of pathetic, but that's the best a story of mine has ever done!! Arigatou arigatou arigatou! And like you asked, more 3x4 on the way. P.S. the money is important!  
  
  
Hey can you hear me?  
I'm calling your name  
Hello? Or is this goodbye?  
The gleam in your eyes  
It troubles my brain  
Will I see it again?  
So I can rest my head  
  
Angel...Angel! Dancing away  
As all of my thoughts get rearranged  
Angel...Angel! Turning away  
Just when thing seem  
To have changed  
So I can rest my head  
  
Hey can you hear me?  
I'm calling your name  
Hello? Or is this goodbye?  
The gleam in your eyes  
It troubles my brain  
Will I see it again?  
So I can rest my head  
  



	3. Walking Alone

Basket Case  
Chapter 3: Walking Alone  
  
  
Earth and Hell blurred. He was in both.  
He could definitely feel Hell. It's searing hot claws liquidating around his skin, drawing him into a world of steam and fire and warmth. It was sort of inviting, promising to melt away that awful pressure in his entire body that had been building since last night. It promised to take the foot away before it smashed the pop can. It promised to pull the cork out before the champagne bottle that was Duo cracked and burst. He welcomed it. After all, he was Shinigami and Hell was his domain. Wasn't it?  
/_**Dammit! Dammit! Open!**_/  
Duo wanted to quiet the pain in the voice. The intensity cut through his soul as that sharp feedback suddenly cut into his brainwaves. It began to fade again, like it always had. That voice only lived in his mind for less than half a minute then would leave on the note of sharp feedback. It was filled with cursing and desperation.  
/_**Goddamit! He better not be drowning… I will kill you if you do, I swear! Please…**_/  
It faded. Duo was left alone in silence to sit in the warm of Hell.  
  
  
Trowa watched from kitchen, while his fingers dialed the hospital wing. Soap opera come to life. Tragedy unfolding. For some reason, he felt like someone should be holding a gun to Heero's head, like a farmer putting a lame horse down. The Heavyarms pilot stared with green eyes.  
Heero was screaming. Not girlish by any standards; just a rough, jagged growl that had become louder and louder every time the door wouldn't open. Locked. The Japanese pilot had begun to kick at the steel door, grunting in pain every time his bare feet collided. His Prussian eyes never wavered. From the kitchen, Trowa could hear bones breaking somewhere in the screaming. Blood had begun leaking out on to the floor, but was instantly swept away by the steady stream of water pouring out.  
Heero battered the door time and time again. The steel caved in, denting wildly as the lunges became more reckless and painful.   
Trowa snapped back to the screen as a nurse picked up the call.   
Heero slipped, screaming again. The pilot lost his footing on the slick floor and the rest of his body seized the opportunity to rest by collapsing. He allowed himself to slink to the floor. But once he began to realize that Duo couldn't swim, a well of motivation caused him to crawl on his hands and knees. Like an animal, he used the blunt of his shoulder to push against the door. The Japanese pilot never looked away.  
Why was he like this? Wasn't the Perfect soldier trained to be void of emotions?   
/_He's acting like such a child… I didn't think that Duo's life was that much of an effect on him._/  
Before Trowa could even answer the nurse standing on the other end of the line, a bright light flooded the mostly dark room, along with a swell of water. The heavy door fell into the standing water and mist sprung up. Heero grunted and lifted his body up. He could feel his bones poking out his skin as well as a burning sensation slowly working up his body. The pilot scrambled to his feet and rushed in.   
Even though his eyes were wide open, it was so blurry to Heero. He kept blinking and blinking but that blurriness returned. As the Japanese pilot came to the tub, he nearly was flung into it. In only a few feet, he'd gotten to top speed and now jolted against the tub. He looked down with panicky blue eyes. Blurriness.   
His fellow pilot lay unconscious in the water, eyes closed peacefully and lips slightly parted. His face was flooded by unruly hair and his braid was unraveling into a spider web of wet hair. Heero's stomach lurched in disgust as the floating body slowly hit against the side flaccidly. His eyes blurred and a feeling as if he'd been stabbed and suffocated came up in his own chest. But the scary thing was that he felt nothing from Duo.  
Nothing.  
The Japanese pilot lunged forward and wrapped his arm's around that flushed red body. Heero grunted, pulling Duo out with water flying as he did so. The head of glistening hair lolled limply around, coming to rest as it hit his chest. More disgust, a welling feeling of panic. He rushed to lay Duo down, who still hadn't responded or at least grunted.  
"Duo!" Heero screamed. A confused mixture of anger and fear drew his eyebrows down, narrowing them. "Open your fucking eyes!"  
A pair of feet paused in the door way and Trowa flinched at the scene. Heero, shaking with panic and rage, kneeled over Duo, screaming at the limp and inactive face that had been smiling like an idiot jus t a half hour ago. And suddenly, Heero had grabbed the unconscious and not breathing Duo by the neck and was roughly shaking him, still screaming. "Damn it Duo, open your eyes! You can't fucking drown in a bathtub!"  
By now, the redness that had flushed Duo's face and skin was fading and blueness was overcoming it. As those callused hands ripped into his flight suit collar, his head lolled backwards.  
Trowa was getting sick. Watching this ball of drama burst was too much to just stand by. "Heero, that isn't going to help," Trowa said forcefully, with urgency clear in his voice. As the oddly banged pilot hurried in, he could see the muscles in Heero's back tense up.  
That's when Heero spun around, still shaking the dying Duo, and the hard knuckles slashed across his chin. Trowa was caught off guard by this violent act and pulled himself up from the floor, fighting against the water current still flooding the apartment. As he vaguely brushed the blood from his lip, which had been cut on his teeth, he blinked in surprise at Heero's face. Heero was mad with panic, and a look similar to that of the Zero system, and there was… no, he never would cr-  
"What do I do?!" Heero screamed.  
"Heero, he's not breathing. You have to do CPR else he'll be dead in a few minutes," Trowa said calmly, trying to get Heero's head back for him. But his own fear was boiling up too; what if Duo had been not breathing too long?  
The panicked pilot's entire body was heaving with each heavy breath. He stared into Trowa's green eyes for a second then stopped holding the dying Duo Maxwell by his collar. His training suddenly flooded him again and the blurriness in his eyes came again. Heero didn't even pause, hesitate, or think before he dove into Duo's bluish and lukewarm lips.  
And suddenly, there was no more voice in his head. It had lingered in the back of his mind since yesterday, and now that buzzing presence disappeared. Slowly, as he breathed life back into Duo, he felt the limp body instantly jerk. A torrent of emotion broke into Heero, stirred in a jumble of out-of-focus memories and thoughts. The Japanese pilot recoiled as he could feel those alien feelings fill a void in him and simultaneously, draw a part of his soul out into the dying Duo.   
/**_What the hell?_** /  
/_Heero…_ /  
Heero's thin frame shook violently, suddenly. A draining force seemed to drink all the strength from his body. Blood poured from the self-inflicted wound off his lip as he separated from the groaning Duo, staggered back in the steaming water, then hit the wall and slumped unconscious there. Duo, however, recovered himself and sat breathing heavily through his soaping bangs. The American pilot stared at Trowa, bluish lips shaking. The sterile light of the bathroom glittered in his wide violet eyes and he exhaustedly blew a darkened strand of hair from his face. The pressure in his body was gone.  
"Is this Hell?"  
  
  
"Ow! …. Ow!…. Owowowow!" Duo growled, closing an eye. He jerked away as the concerned Quatre Winner checked his throat for anything wrong, since it was burnt reddish and Duo complained of it hurting. Every time he moved his fingers, a sharp sore screamed. "Careful, I think it's broken or something!"  
"Maxwell, suck it up and take it like a man," Wufei commented. The Chinese pilot circled the sterile white room with his arms folded and katana glinting at his waist. After ignoring the raspberry Duo returned with, he closed his eyes and left.  
As a concerned comrade, Quatre still darted his fingers around Duo's burned neck, checking for an injury. He kept his head titled back and started yelping again. The Arabic pilot finally recoiled his hands and Duo instantly began to rub at his sore throat.  
"Gomen Duo," Quatre apologized, picking up a thermometer and poking it at his lip. The American rolled his eyes but lodged the cold metal under his tongue.  
"Jeemzee, mhat's mold!"  
The platinum blonde laughed. "I know it is. But just bear with us, okay?"  
Duo grunted and pointed to the thermometer. With another laugh, Quatre pulled it out and inspected it. "Ya know," Duo said sarcastically, with a grin, "You'd make a wonderful mother one day, Quatre."  
"Thanks… I think."  
Quatre, still dotted with black grease from fixing up Sandrock, left the side of the hospital bed. He leaned over a large backpack beside the doorway and pulled out a blue glass jar and a tiny bottle of liquid.  
The American shrugged his blanket tighter around his shoulders. As the Arabic pilot returned and sat down, he held up the items to see. "Rashid sent this for you. He was worried about you; we're all like sons to him."   
Duo maneuvered the thermometer around his lips jauntily, looking up the glinting bottles. He narrowed his violet eyes then cagily drew one arm out of the blanket. "What is it?" he inquired, tapping at the blue jar. There were dozens of herb leaves all mashed together. "Quatre, it isn't pot, right?"   
"No." Quatre took back the sculpted glass jar back and popped the wooden cork out. A wafting aroma near to fig newtons and dry dandelions tempted at their noses as it filled the room. "It's an old family remedy of mine."  
"Well, it smells okay. And I'm supposed to…"  
"Eat it," Quatre finished. As a cautious face came over Duo, the Arabic pilot leaned down and scooped up a bowl from the bedside table. "Like soup." He titled his head in a genuine smile. "It'll help your body cool down and just about anything else ailing you. You did have the water on maximum heat, you know Duo."  
"Can you blame me? Hot baths put me right to sleep," Duo said.  
The American folded his arms, his right eyebrow popping up as he watched Quatre's pale hands pour the dry, piney green leaves into the bowl, then pour the oily gold liquid into the mixture. It crackled like acid as it melted the herbs. "Rashid always would feed it to me when I would get lost in the desert. He'd find me sitting out in the sun and all red. I felt so awful, like I had sunburn that never would go away. But this always helped," Quatre said softly, offering the whitish-green soup out to Duo.  
He accepted it warily, but welcomed the warmth it brought to his fingers. As he cupped it in his hands, Duo sniffed the soup then looked back to Quatre. He had the most innocent, glowing smile planted on his features, like he was offering his proudest work to a critic. Duo really didn't want to, but ended up downing the warm soup. It tasted like Alfredo sauce. It tasted… great!  
"Thanks Quatre," he said between eager gulps.  
"You're welcome."  
"So," Duo squeaked out before once again taking a giant swallow of the delicious substance, "…How's Heero doing?" He licked the white soup dotted green from above his lip.  
Quatre ran his fingers once through his platinum blonde hair, tossing it a bit. His big blue eyes locked with Duo with a more serious tone to them. "You really scared him Duo." There was a subtle graveness in his voice that was lost to him in the consuming of the soup.  
"Yeah, I know," he said nonchalantly. His massive gulps were draining the bowl faster than a sink drain and he had a soup mustache around his lips.  
"I'm serious Duo. I came in right after they had carried you to the hospital wing and saw Heero waking up. He panicked when he didn't see you there. He was really worried you were dead," Quatre said. "He even hit Trowa when he tried explaining to him. Twice. I'm concerned more about Heero now."  
"He just volatile. I know, trust me," Duo said.  
"Duo, the doctors are going to give him a sanity test. If he doesn't pass, they'll either send him to an institute or retrain him from square one all over again. And I agree with them. Something's wrong with him."  
This made him pause. Duo rested the bowl in his lap and rubbed some soup off his face. "Oh yeah? Did you get this from your space heart?"  
"Well… that's one of the reasons I'm troubled."  
"Well what?" Duo rested his chin in his hand.  
Quatre sighed and opened his grave blue eyes. "Well… I didn't get anything from Heero. My space heart read nothing. Like he just wasn't there."  
Duo blinked, confused. He twisted up his face and asked, leaning forward, "Is it because he has to be in pain or something?"  
"He was. He's in a room just down the hall, setting his shoulder back in place." Quatre shook his blonde head. "I knew he was there. I just didn't get any emotion out of him."  
"So you finally realized that he doesn't have heart…"  
Quatre was shocked and angered at the same time. "Duo, what are you saying? You're his best friend; you're the one who convinced us that he does."  
A slurp. "I changed my mind."  
"So you're never going to believe that he's human like the rest of us, whether he acknowledges it or not?"  
"Yep."  
"Are you going to stop trying to be friends?"  
"No." Coldness.   
"Then what are you doing?"  
"Nothing alright!" Duo yelled.  
"Heero is a kind boy, he's just buried under himself. Don't you want him to–"  
"Listen, okay? I don't want to do anything to him. He isn't human, he doesn't have a heart, and even if he did, it's impossible to get down there, okay? And stop interrogating me."   
Duo closed his eyes and a frown hinted at the corner of his lips. He brought the soup up to his lip and slurped loudly. Quatre sat on the sheets, next to his feet, and began to frown in both distress and exasperation. His blue eyes slowly narrowed.   
Duo glanced his violet eyes over, still slurping the green-white soup. "What?" he asked.  
"Nothing," Quatre said, sighing. With a strange anger about him that Quatre never showed, he left the room without another word. For an odd reason, Duo was left with the impression that he was a stubborn husband and the angry wife was just walking away, silently, again.  
The American sourly turned onto his side in the bed, still unreleased by the hospital wing to fight. Duo curled the blanket around his shoulders, dug his head into the pillow, sighed, and then lowered his eyes. He didn't want to think, he didn't want to mull over what he had said, and all he wanted was to forget…   
/_Heero does not have a heart… I'm pretty damn sure of that. Not after what he did…_/  
And, listening as he stood stealthily in the doorway, Heero Yuy wondered what that was.  
  
  
  
----  
Whoo! Finished! The end was all dialogue, man I never thought I could write actual talking like that. Go read the lyrics to the song Walking Alone. I pick these for a reason, ya know. THANK U for all the reviews! I never get that many and my little heart goes piterpater whenever I see one. Please tell me what you think, I"m actually putting some plot down, which I've never really done either. In unrelated news, Notebooks and Pencils and Sometimes Rules has more laundromat comic up!!! It is the cutest, funniest, sexiest english comic ever, and its 1x2!!! Go read it people, in fact go read any of Mr. Bear's Psycharist's stuff, its great. I'm such a plug... In more unrelated news, I finished my Higher video on VHS, which a yaoi gw video... It turned out greater than I expected, I have no way of knowing if I'm timing clips, and it still works even after all the film got twisted in the player and I had to rip it out. ^_^ Anyway, enough chat. R&R!  
  
  
  
Come together like a foot in a shoe   
Only this time I think I stuck my foot in my mouth.   
Thinking out loud and acting in vain.   
Knocking over anyone that stands in my way.   
  
Sometimes I need to apologize.   
Sometimes I need to admit that I ain't right.   
Sometimes I should just keep my mouth shut, or only say hello.   
Sometimes I still feel I'm walking alone.   
  
Walk on eggshells on my old stomping ground, yet there's really no one left, that's hanging around.   
Isn't that another familiar face?   
Too drunk to figure out they're fading away.   
  
  
  



	4. About A Girl

Basket Case  
Chapter 4: About A Girl  
  
  
  
The next morning, after another rage from Wufei at the smashed pop cans around Duo's bunk, everything went by the norm. Duo came bounding in at promptly 11:00, but not by his late sleeping this time. The hospital wing had released him and he was free to join the mission they probably would be receiving that afternoon. He had walked in on the cooking Quatre darting back and forth from the sink to the sizzling range; secretly sneaking kisses to Trowa as they passed, the unibang pilot fixing up the ingredients at the counter. Wufei sat meditating on the mat between the couch and the table. Duo first ran into the bunkroom and tossed his body onto his bed, fishing out his hairbrush.   
"Quatre!" he communicated across the apartment.  
"Yes?"  
Meanwhile, fingers left the pages of a rustic-smelling book and curled back the bunk curtain just an inch for a second. Heero blinked once at Duo, sitting on the top bunk diagonal from him with his legs folded and hair unbraiding messily, and then quietly closed himself back in, hidden from sight. He tried to just disappear into the wall again, feeling the boy's presence in the form of lurching stomach nervousness. He didn't want to hear any more thoughts. He tried to get out of range even though he knew it was impossible.  
The American reached his arms behind his back and unwound his hair, starting from the bottom. He hooked the rubber band around his wrist and hooked his head out of his bunk. "When's lunch? I'm starving!"  
"Just a second… Trowa! Hey-"  
Duo blinked, confused. He brought his arm to his chest, and his hair clenched there sprayed out. Man, was it ever knotty…  
"Heero, do you know they had absolutely no brushes in that hospital wing? I mean, they had plenty of combs, but those were reserved for the balding men there seems to be so many of," Duo chatted causally. He seemed to know that Heero was hiding behind the blue curtain and the American had a victorious smile plastered on. He lifted his hair and waved it toward Heero. "And do I look like one of those? Well, hell no!"  
The muscles in Heero's neck tightened visibly as he felt Duo pull out one of the tougher knots in his hair. But he didn't reply in thought or words. He was going to avoid Duo today, he'd decided… first drowning himself… then all the mixed messages. It was driving him away from Duo, but at the same time he was being jerked closer in an ambiguous, torturous fashion.   
Another knot was pulled and Duo kept the one-sided conversation going.  
"Now that I think about it, hair can be really weird. Dark in the winter, light in the summer… its' odd if you really think about it. Life is like that, though… Oh, I remember when I was caught off guard and my friends dumped a container of strawberry pop at the church. I was the only red head without freckles in all the colonies. It wore off though."  
Heero had almost fallen asleep by now. The dusty scent of aged paper and the rolling baritone voice outside his bunk and his exhaustion had lulled him to an absentminded state just before dreaming. Suddenly, the slightest rise and change of tone in Duo's voice jerked him back to reality.  
"Oi, Heero!"  
The Japanese pilot growled and tried not to think too loudly.  
"What, Duo?"   
The American audibly leapt from his bunk and sat against Heero's bunk, not bothering to open the curtain. He stretched his legs across the narrow hall and propped them on Wufei's bunk.  
"Have you ever read something that really inspired you?"  
"Yeah…" Heero stared at the silhouette of Duo's girlish hair that was cast on the curtain. "Once. Then I burned it."  
"Why?" Duo had a laughing tone.  
"It was a book on defense from daily stresses. It was really touching, but it didn't work," Heero replied dryly, hinting sarcastically, arching his back up against the wall and returning to his book, cold eyes focused only on the ink and print before him but his mind unable to totally focus with Duo's shadow cast into the detached comfort of his bunk. He prayed for him to go away.  
The American collected his chestnut hair at his chest. He laughed softly, shaking his head simultaneously. "Heero, you're so blunt someone could use you as a bowling ball," Duo said. The silhouette of hair on the blue curtain morphed into a profile, as the American cocked his head toward Heero. He laughed, giving Heero the perfect vantage point to see his lips curl back and his teeth grin. "You'll never change."   
Heero glared out of the corner of his eye. "Leave…" he growled.  
"Fine," the American said without protest, giving the curtains a curt sock to rattle Heero.  
Duo walked into the kitchen, sat down at the table, and smiled. He was going to drown his sorrows in a ketchup bottle, a grilled cheese sandwich, and the contentment of seeing Heero hold his nose up angrily and walk past, avoiding eye contact more than usual. He'd gotten under Heero's skin again, he knew. But whether that was a good thing or not, Duo wasn't sure. The only thing he'd gotten out of it before were indifferent glares, monotonous cracks at pessimistic jokes, black eyes, and an awakening slap in the face he'd like to forget.  
Quatre sat down after finishing, draping the greased up apron over his chair. "Well, one more meal down," he commented to himself. "I wonder what we'll be doing today... There hasn't been a lot said on the situation, not to me at least." He turned to Trowa, who was just sitting down with his plate of hot food. "Did you hear anything?"  
He mutely shook his head, taking a drink of water.  
"We do have a mission," Wufei said. The Chinese pilot was polishing his sword carefully while still in meditating position. "They'll alert us of the details after the strategies are formed. We should probably head out right away and do some last minute repairs."  
Duo licked some ketchup from his fingers, then stopped, taking in the other pilots' conversation. "Oh shit, I forgot! How's Deathscythe?" The American was mentally slapping himself. "I just left her there and got in trouble with the tub right after that. Jesus, I can't believe I neglected her…"  
"It's fine," came Heero's gruff voice. The stoic pilot yanked out his chair and sat roughly down. He looked to Duo once and then just grabbed a slice of toast that would suffice his tough body for at least a few hours until he got around to cooking. He was trying to drown out that horrible taste of grilled cheese.  
"Are you sure?" There was no fooling around in Duo's voice this time.  
Heero's Prussian eyes flashed lowly to Duo. "Kitto. I took the liberty of checking on it while you were sick in bed."  
Violet eyes were just as dangerous. "I was not sick, just injured – You were!"  
The snap was received and answered quietly. The Japanese boy leaned subtly forward to grasp another piece of toast, but his intention was to get close enough to whisper in Duo's ear. "I was, but I wasn't dumb enough to drown in a two-foot deep bathtub."  
Duo glared. "Shut up," he said angrily, crucifying his sandwich with a fork and sharply tearing his eyes away. He simultaneously shifted his chair further away from Heero's and cocked it to the side, so his shoulder was to his best friend. It would have been so much easier to be mad if they didn't sit next to each other.  
Quatre giggled and shook his head. As he stood up, finished with his lunch, the overworking blonde felt Trowa grab him by the hand. It wasn't rough at all; just Trowa's more causal way to get his koi's attention. Wide, innocent blue eyes met enigmatic green and Trowa motioned with his eyes toward Duo and Heero, who had begun what he knew as 'the first-stage': mistimed glances at each other between sparing mouthful of food. Quatre smiled and let go.  
Trowa had been asking for Duo to pass a glass, when the American's eyes turned into frightened, horrified saucers. He suddenly yelped and dropped it to shatter into tiny slivers of fractured glass on the floor.   
Quatre turned quickly, along with Heero, Trowa and the meditating Wufei to see the Queen of the World standing in the doorway. But that wasn't the reason Duo had shrieked in terror, and continued to stare like there was an army of knife wielding bloody serial killers.  
It was the suitcase she had and that ridiculously overly eager smile.   
Relena's aqua blue-green eyes lit up like a Christmas tree at the sight of Heero, who was glaring over his shoulder before he realized just who was in the door. She brushed a strand of hair from her face with long fingernails in a very rehearsed manner. "Heero!" she cried out across the living room and joint kitchen, bowing her head politely. It was in more of an excited spoken manner than a yell.  
Duo instantly dropped his fork.  
"R--Relena," Heero replied, feigning indifference, but with dinner-plate eyes betraying shock and bits of mulling annoyance, "what are you doing here?"  
The queen of the world sauntered in, obviously flaunting her new-looking high-heeled shoes. Her eyes seemed never waver from Heero's paling, and slightly confused face, matching his glares blow for blow. "I've come to help settle the confusion. You have no mission at the moment, correct?"  
"Not for a few hours, yes, but Relena you have to understand—"  
"I do understand," the girl said, prancing up to Heero. She was dangerously close for a non-pilot, close enough to see the individual bangs frayed over his temples, close enough to see the shocked whites of his eyes, close enough for instantaneous death. She lifted her suitcase. "I rushed up as soon as I heard you were in a political jam. I can help you get back on track and figure out just who would be more rewarding to fight or unite with. This war doesn't have to go on forever."  
"That's very kind of you, Relena, but—"  
Her honey grin spread happily, watching the flustered expression on the Gundam pilot's face and misinterpreting it, twisting it in her mind so she would see what she wanted to see. "There's no need to be bashful about this, Heero." She let a coy grin escape her and she gently brushed her finger on Heero's bare shoulder in a friendly gesture, but one that was much more than that. "You're welcome."  
Duo gulped and silently took a drink of his juice, closing his eyes. He waited for it…  
Two masculine eyebrows hooked together, a lip curled upward in annoyance, and Heero's patience stuttered weak. "_Relena_…" he whispered heatedly, as she giggled and amused herself with glancing around the poorly furnished, stingy apartment, taking no notice of the dangerous emotion registering on the stoic face behind her.   
"Relena!" he said loudly.  
She turned back around, her face picturesque innocence. "What?"  
"I understand that you are trying to help, but this is not the place to be doing it. You'll only be a disruption to us if you try to… to…" — he pointed, almost disgustedly, to her suitcase — "make peace here. Go to the source of the problem if you must help—Go to your speeches and treaty signings."  
"It's dangerous here," Quatre commented.   
"We do not need an onna in our midst to help us prepare to fight in our apartment," Wufei said firmly, hunching over his meal and breaking eye contact. He seemed to keep a steady air of indifference, but his patience, too was fading. "Yuy is right."  
This was the only time even acknowledged the other pilots existed beyond Heero. She raised her stern blue-green eyes to each one, spending the least amount of time on Duo, who cut away to stare down at his lunch. "Nonsense," she declared, after a tense moment with intense pilot eyes on her. "You won't even notice I'm here. I'll be perfectly quiet and while you're out on missions, I'll be out talking to officials."  
Duo's eyes narrowed at his food, taking another stab.  
"Listen, Ms. Relena," Trowa said, "it's not the best time to be here. We've had odd incidents and sicknesses happening lately and we don't want to shoulder any of the responsibility if you were to get hurt."  
"Thank you for the thought… uh…"  
"Trowa," the unibang pilot finished, green eyes betraying no emotion.  
"Anyway," she continued hastily, haughtily even, with a narcissistic flip of her long honey hair. The girl turned back to Heero, who was trying to piece his patience together behind a set face, and smiled again, broader. She lifted her suitcase on her knees giddily. "Won't you show me to my room, Heero?"  
"We have not decided if you're going to stay, Relena," Heero said darkly, his stony blue eyes trying to strike some sense into her where she stood. "We make decisions that affect the whole as a whole. Now, if you'd excuse me, we have a decision to make…"  
The Queen of the World blinked, a bit taken back by this new resistance to her powerful willpower to finally see love reflect in those Prussian eyes, love for her, a barricade to her all-important goal, to the rest of her life, to her come-to-life dreams, and just nodded like a good little girl should have. She numbly watched the Japanese boy subtly nod his head toward the bunkroom, causing his bangs to shift back and forth over his eyes, and the rest of the pilots hurriedly jumped from their chairs, filling the apartment with this cacophony of chair legs complaining against the wooden kitchen floor. The last to get up was Duo, who hurriedly stuffed the scrappy remainders of his grilled cheese sandwich into his mouth, then chewed it maliciously. All the while, he stared at the silent girl in the center of the joint kitchen and living room, somehow subdued by the possibility that she might not be living with her precious Heero into a little vulnerable, dumb love-struck girl. He grinned then dashed toward the bunk room.  
  
/_Ha ha._ /   
  
  
  
The American shut the door quickly on a menagerie of soft-spoken anger and agreeing yet uncertain opinions, ricocheting off the closed walls. Duo glanced back out the cracked door to the living room once, seeing Relena sitting on the couch, then slid it quietly close again. Why did she have to come now?!—Of all the unexpected, inconvenient times, with the worst, most complicating intentions; stay over! A sleepover! A chance to get her obsessing love into her bed—No way! Puffing out an angry breath, the American hurried past the bunks to the small open space behind them, in the corner, where the four other pilots were sitting, standing, leaning in a small, private circle, their voices not so private.  
"We can't! That … that girl will interfere with us, no matter what she says. It may be true to her, in her little mind, but I know she will," Wufei said indignantly, folding his arms and flashing glances at everyone. "We can be as polite as we want to be, but it's weak to just let her in and deal with it."  
Quatre bit at his finger, staring at the ground. "Point taken, but…"  
"But what, Winner? What is there to argue in her favor? We all know that girl is dying to get her claws into Yuy, and political reasoning or not, this would give her a chance," the Chinese pilot commented.  
The American entered the ring of conversation with Heero leaning against the far corner, Trowa sitting on a storage box pressed against the back of his bunk, Wufei standing with arms imposingly folded, Quatre sitting beside the storage box on the floor. He lazily attempted a titled smirk and said sarcastically, sitting down on the floor beside the blonde, "Like Heero has anything slightly romantic for her to get any claws into." It was another jest in the game that had been started at the table at lunch, and it invoked a nasty but still stoic look from Heero.  
"Stay on topic," he growled.  
Quatre seemed deaf to their conversation. "I know, I know, I know Wufei. But it's not just about her thing for Heero; she might actually do some good for us, clear the path for us to get something done and end this famine."  
"She doesn't have to stay here, though," Heero said darkly. "Why not on Earth or the colonies?"  
The blonde shook his head and looked down at the floor, clawing his fingers through his hair. Something definitely beyond the issue of Relena's vision on the apartment being an open hotel was affecting him. "It's really her choice. We have become dependent on her to handle the political matters of this war, and it would be much easier to protect her when she's this close to us."  
"What about when we can only protect ourselves, on missions? And what's going to protect us from her?" Wufei retorted, having a strategic and biting return for every point Quatre made.  
Duo withdrew from the conversation, willingly, letting it rage on between Quatre and Wufei, the Arabian pilot arguing reluctantly for her, the Chinese pilot arguing vehemently against her. He was unusually silent and withdrawn, even to himself. Trowa and Heero had their inspired moment when they would participate in debates or arguments, but in their own restrained way, and this was not one of those days.   
Duo's newly coined stoicism piqued a new curiosity in Heero, who could take in the conversation with one half of his consciousness, and watch the American at the same time. He watched his mannerisms… for… nothing better to do, he thought, and started to memorize them more than he had before. He recognized the nonchalant arms behind his head, his cocky, American-brazen akimbo stance, and the grin… all the most obvious things. But now he noticed everything so much more, the emotions that came with each mannerism since he was so in tuned to the American, but some force unseen. Heero watched Duo's vision shift back and forth to Quatre and Wufei as they debated and felt a pang of… resentment? The wide, caricature violet eyes settled on Quatre, and… jealousy? Wufei and… depression? Trowa and… admiration?   
Suddenly, two eyes were on him and fear not his own shot into his heart like a needle straight into his vena cava. Duo looked at him, and… was afraid? Heero blinked in shock, then ripped his eyes hastily away, knowing that although Duo jerked away as well, he still was glancing up at him.  
Because the fear was still there, in Duo, therefore now installed in him.  
The two were revived to the conversation by Wufei's voice. "—Fine, Winner, fine."  
"I'm glad we agree."  
"Well, I'm not agreeing," the dark-haired pilot said in defense, "I just see your point. Now…"  
"A vote," Trowa finished, raising his right palm in the air.  
"Those opposed?" Quatre asked, turning eyes to meet black, blue, green, and violet. "Say 'I'."  
The room was awfully tense as the hands began to move and vocal chords warmed.  
Outside, Relena stared down at her fingernails and danced them for herself in nervousness, in heartbroken want. /_Oh, please let it work... please let him love me... I know he does... he must... he has to.._ ./  
  
  
  
---  
GAWD that took long, didn't it. I hope nobudy forgot about me. I am the most forgetful person with the shortest attention span, so things can get swept under the rug every easily. I pulled this one back out and read it and said, I have to keep going. The plot is a little twisted now, because I don't have the same vision as I did when I started writing but it got better, I think. Bitch relena.... ooooh bitch relena is bbback. It's kind of a crappy ending, but I didn't want to rush into another cliffhanger, but this one is sort of one, too. Take a guess why Duo has fear of Heero? A) Heerophobia? B) He knows that secretly, Heero made a Hello Kitty shrine for the band Devo to take on their Wisconsin tour? or C) He owes him money. If you answered with any of these, you're insane! What are you doing, talking to the screen?? There are people looking at you, aren't there... ha, I thought so. THANK YOU SOO MUCH for all the reviews... I feel so loved and accepted, thanks. thanks. thanks to That Girl, Takatome Ichido, Katie, Meri, BluWlf, XiaoBaoBei, ShiTiger, Nif86, Deathwish, Ais, Neo, NightCrawler, Imp Gurl, Potato King, everybody! Bubbye! Oh, the lyrics! The first three songs are Green Day, my second favorite band with the second hottest man on the planet [to me] Billie Joe Armstrong, and this one, About a Girl, is by Nirvana, my favorite band with the most beautiful, hot, sexy funny man who... uh, was on the planet, Kurt Cobain. Stupid courtney. She killed 'im, ya know. Hehe, I hope no body knows her and tells her I said that...  
  
  
I need an easy friend  
I do... with an ear to lend  
I do... think you fit this shoe  
I do... but you have a clue   
  
Take advantage while  
You hang me out to dry  
But I can't see you every night free  
  
I'm standing in your line  
I do... hope you have the time  
I do... pick a number too   
I do... keep a date with you   



	5. Here Comes Your Man

Basket Case  
Chapter 5: Here Comes Your Man  
  
  
So that there would be no changing of the votes because of alliances in their little group that could sway the other member's opinion, Quatre made them all close their eyes while they voted. There were minor grumbles in the room, most of them Wufei voicing his disapproval of Relena staying directed more at himself than anyone. But each pilot closed their eyes, rolling them first optional, and sat back and waited for the each other to finish voting. As soon as his lids fell over his eyes, Duo's arm was straight in the air to vote 'opposed', his chest burning with anger at the nerve of that girl… invading and prancing in like she owned their own little private hell—no! It was theirs, and only theirs.   
She hadn't been in the war like they had. While she had been calculating and strategizing and memorizing speeches to persuade the public in this little chess game of war, they had been the paws she'd been using. They were the ones giving up their lives, their chances for a normal life, permanently. It wasn't that she understood and still disrespected them… she'd never be able to understand period.  
_ /…I think I'd rather kill myself than let her stay here…_/ he thought bitterly. Duo didn't realize in his anger that another bout of feedback had gone through his head, since he'd become accustomed to it, and just how loud he was thinking.  
_**/I won't let you. /  
**_ The alien sound of a deep, rough voice seemed to explode into existence in his mind. Duo's heart just about stopped, jolted by how suddenly it had appeared. He had to squint fearsomely so that he wouldn't open them and make them vote all over again, bite his lip so he wouldn't make a noise, and dig his fingers into his thigh to stop him from jumping in shock.   
_/Jesus! Scare me to death, why don't you! Man… /_  
_** /…I won't. /**_  
_ /Heero? /_  
A mental sigh not his own filled the echo of his skull, as if his brain was an auditorium and Heero was standing with in that auditorium talking inches from him. It sounded—no, felt so real.   
_**/…Yes, /**_ he answered after a pause. The tired age was stunningly prominent in his voice. **_/…it's me. So you can hear me again.../ _**  
Duo kept his eyes closed, and paused to listen for Quatre to tell them to open their eyes. To tell them the voting was over and Relena was on the next flight home, but it was oddly quiet outside the strange new conversation in his brain. He "turned" back to talk to Heero again. /I thought it was you, but now… it just seems weird to actually be talking to you like this. Well… thinking to you or something like that. /  
_ ** /Have you heard anyone else like this? /**  
/No. This has never happened before. I really don't think I'm psychic or anything. /  
** /Maybe it's a recurring hallucination…/**_ Heero's voice was tinted with flickering insecurity, as if his eyes were shying down to the floor.  
_ /Be serious. No one has the exact same hallucinations at the same time, Heero. /  
** /…No, I mean… you could be the hallucination. /**  
/Me? Hey, you could be the hallucination too! /_  
_** /…You're right… then we're not imagining it. /**_  
_ /Dammed right! /_  
** _/… Duo? /_**  
_/Yeah? What, Hee-chan? /_  
_** /…What did you mean by what you said… in the hospital wing?—/ **_  
Before Duo had a second to react, he could sense the feedback rising again in the back of his brain, sweeping over his hearing viciously and disconnecting them like it'd done before… but now it sliced into his ear drums and every cell in his brain like a frenzied butcher knife trying to beat the life out of him. It was thick, liquid, throbbing acid pain in his head that made him squeeze his eyes shut, teeth clamped down on tongue firmly to keep the yelp of sudden, unexpected pain bottled in. As the last remnants of Heero's voice in his head faded, he got a final spark of worry from him that melted into oblivion. Duo was alone now and his pain, instead of wavering and fading like Duo expected it should now that the feedback was gone, seemingly got a malicious will and intensified.   
Finally, Duo let in and let out a shaky groan as he tried to sit up straight, pain racking down his neck and back like molten knives and eyes squinted painfully shut. Vertigo plagued him suddenly and he could hear wary voices calling out to him, their words slurred, and felt a hand on his shoulder as he toppled backwards, nearly taking the person with him. He hit the floor and the room erupted in the sound of people rushing over to him. All the while, the pain train was making steady progression down his back and through his chest. His vision was swirling pink and red and black behind his eyelids and hands were struggling to help him up, voices still murmuring off in the distance. Duo said something, although he wasn't sure what, and tried desperately to curl back up on the floor. The more they tried to stand him up, the more the pain intensified. In his daze, his arm whipped out, trying to discourage them, struck flesh, a hand let go of his shoulder, his head smacked against the floor, and blackness swallowed.  
  
  
The smell of starched fabric was the first thing that Duo knew when he regained consciousness, the second was that his nose wedged firmly into his pillow and his hair was draped over his bare shoulder. Darkness greeted his eyes when he opened them, so he closed them again and prepared to roll over and dive into sleep again. But a spike of sudden hunger rushed up to greet him, like it had been caught off guard, demolishing any hopes Duo had of going back to sleep.  
The American took in his first deep breath of the day—or night. He wasn't sure what time it was. Kicking the sheets slightly, he stretched his arms ritually to the steel bottom of the bunk above him while lying on his back, and then arched them back to touch behind his head, simultaneously tapping the wall down by his feet with his naked toes. He blinked the sleep from his eyes and brushed his hair over his shoulder back onto his back as he sat up to examine the room.  
Black engorged the entire apartment, save for the glint of light under the door he could see through the open door to the bunkroom, and the mellow glow of a light in the empty bunk above him. Duo didn't quite connect that no one slept in the bunk above him, but instead busied himself with flexing his back muscles tentatively. Instant soreness. As soon as they moved again, they seized up stiffly but not enough to cause him real pain or inhibit him from moving. Duo grumbled to himself and flipped the blanket off himself, swinging his legs over the edge. His stomach was growling like a rabid pit bull by now.  
Suddenly, a voice rang out above him, soft and dangerous, like a sleeping lion's purr.   
"Get back in bed."  
In the black, light poured out of the bunk above him as the curtain was pulled back. Duo squinted, his night-adjusted eyes stinging. He muttered a very intelligent, "Whaa…?" to go with.  
Heero's disheveled head poked out, face stern and stone-set and a book in hand. His reading light flickered as he moved in the bunk.   
"Get back in bed. I need to talk to you." His Prussian eyes seized on Duo's face, cocked up at him and pale in the yellow din of his reading light. They darted back and forth under furrowed brows, as he asked flatly, "Do you need anything?"  
While mulling over the first part of Heero's statement, Duo rubbed at his eyes and mumbled, "…Yeah… some food…" When he realized how cold the apartment air could be while dressed only in his boxers, Duo quickly retreated back to his blankets and numbly watched Heero slip off his bunk and land silently on the floor. His head bobbed back up to be at eye level with Duo as he curled up in the secure darkness of his bunk, trying to hide under his cock-eyed bangs.  
"It's eleven. You've been unconscious for nearly sixteen hours," Heero stated stoically, lifeless eyes staring into the black at the vague outline of his comrade.  
In a gravelly, groggy voice, Duo replied sarcastically, "Nice to know I've been a lazy ass for an entire day."  
Heero snorted humorlessly and started to shift off into the black.   
The American propped himself up on his arms and asked suddenly, "Where are the others?"  
"They left on a three day-mission." Heero paused, but didn't even bother to turn around.   
"Why are you here? Shouldn't you be helping them?" He couldn't even see the Japanese boy anymore; he'd stalked off into the dark toward the kitchen. His eyebrows furrowed confusedly as he traced the sound of Heero's footsteps approaching the scanty fridge, a short-lived burst of starchy yellow-white light off in the distance, the muted clinking of a plate, and after a few seconds of wavering silence, footsteps returning to the bunkroom. Heero shut the door behind him and flicked on the lights.  
Duo's eyes stung with more unexpected light, but he sucked it up and, wrapped thoroughly in blankets, hooked his legs over the edge of his bunk and stared at the bowl of questionable looking food and water bottle Heero handed him. Despite the unattractive smell the pale-colored soup gave off, Duo's hunger won over his taste buds and he dove right into it. The American recognized it as the nutrition soup that was a staple of Heero's diet, so buzzing with superfluous and essential vitamins and proteins alike that he could almost taste them. He quickly finished the thick soup and then took a long thirsty drink from the water bottle. When he wiped off his mouth, he saw that Heero was still standing there and apparently had been watching.   
"Done?" he asked.  
Duo mutely nodded, taking one last drink emptying the water bottle, and handed back the bowl and bottle back to Heero. "Thanks," he said lifelessly. His comrade just stashed the dirty dishes on his bed, which was immaculately made and wrinkle-free like always.   
Duo wrinkled his nose, remembering what he had said a few minutes ago. "You still haven't answered my question," he said quietly, drained of his usual bravado and energy. "Why'd you stay?"  
Heero climbed into Trowa's bunk, directly across from Duo's, and said, "Someone needed to stay back to look after you." His Prussian eyes drilled into Duo with just as much lackluster as the American's. "I stayed, that way we can settle this issue for good."  
"What issue?" Duo asked, genuinely unknowing, sleep still clenching most of his brain.  
Heero's face darkened slightly across from him. "You being able to hear me in your head," he pointed out impatiently, face settling back into the hint of a scowl again; a deep, dark, discontented shadow that contorted his face out of its normal stoic poise.  
"Oh." The American's eyes strayed into the space between his toes. "I forgot… Hey, whatever happened about the b—I mean, Relena?"  
"We finished voting without you," Heero stated.  
"I hope you put me down as opposed," Duo snorted agitatedly, the image of that girl and her undressing, innocent green-blue eyes that feigned the act of a nice girl so wickedly just to get his friend where she wanted him. As much as he wanted to be bitter forever, how much easier it would be, Duo realized that it was wrong to take his frustration out on Heero if he was too naïve to recognize advances when they smacked him in the face with a shovel. He leaned forward, resting his hands in his lap, and asked, "…So… what was the final vote?"  
"Two opposed, three not opposed."  
Duo bit his lip, instantly. "Damn," he grumbled, the usual glint of dynamism completely void in his expression. Even his reserve of cynicism, saved for last, seemingly had gone bone dry. He was about to comment negatively on the subject further when Heero butted non-abrasively in first.  
"We made a compromise to let her stay, but in the room across the hall instead of here. Happy?" Heero said harshly, picking up on the American's pessimism and striking back with his own. "She won't be interfering with us directly, then." Heero rested his elbows on his knees and scoffed. "And you won't fight with her."  
"What?" Duo said, surprised. The Japanese could boldly see the frightened whites boring into him like a surprised ghost accusation.   
The returning expression was smug. His Prussian eyes brooded under a cocked eyebrow, a dark knowing hint on his face, as he said, "Don't think I don't listen to you, Duo. Most of the time you don't even notice I'm there and you manage to rant a lot about Relena. The thoughts about just how you might be able to sneak past Wufei to stash the body are especially easy to pick up on—and hard to ignore." Duo was equally shocked by the fact that Heero had stalked undetected in his brain waves, his private thoughts, and by the rare humor in his comrade's voice. It died as quickly as it had bloomed, depriving his face of all hospitality like a desert chasing away incoming, life-saving rain clouds.  
"Duo…" Heero's slightly nasal, rolling voice brought Duo's embarrassed, nervous eyes out from the crevices of his toes where they had quickly dropped.  
"Yeah?"   
"… Do you think you could learn how to shut me off, sort of tune me out?" His voice was hungry for answers and pure, hard, untainted facts.  
The American gazed thoughtfully back for a brief second, scanning his brain for an opinion, then finally ended the search with a tired, slight shake of his head. He shifted within the warm billows of the blankets wrapped around his lower half uneasily; thoughts of what Heero could have eavesdropped upon in the sacred caverns of his brain still haunting him. "No," he said finally, "I don't think I can. I have no control over it… I don't even know when it's coming or leaving… Except for when it's gone…"  
"Hn?" The curious tone meant for him to elaborate.   
Duo quickly rubbed at his temple, then answered, gesturing in an aimless circle with his hand. "When your voice fades out… I get this weird reverberation in my brain, the same you get when you plug in a guitar the wrong way or mess with a microphone. It usually only stings a bit when it happens, but the last time it happened was when I got knocked out." Duo's violet eyes glinted up at Heero suddenly as he jerked his thumb toward the space behind the bunks where it had happened. "It felt like someone had poured acid on my brain and then stomped out the fire with steel-toed boots."  
Suddenly, Heero's throat wasn't big enough to let air through and his mouth turned dry. He remembered the pain Duo had experienced vividly, albeit slightly nulled from being an second-hand experience. He nodded to himself, while closing his eyes; Duo's description hit the nail on the head fairly hard. "I know," Heero commented in a gravelly voice, gaze down. He sensed Duo's eyes freezing on him confusedly. "… I felt it, too…"  
"What? ……Okay, wait a second. Let me get this straight," Duo said, punctuating with his pointing finger. "You felt… or you can feel what I feel? Pain? Emotions? Anything?"  
"All of the above," the other pilot answered, stoic face drained. "Yes, it's true… that's why I threw up when you did… I don't get what you describe as feedback. I hardly know when I'm connected to your brainwaves." He tentatively lifted his eyes back up to gauge his comrade's reaction, to see if explanation swept across his face. Two purple eyes darted furiously back and forth, processing the answer, until finally the knot between his eyebrows tensely released with an angry sigh.  
Duo threw his arms into the air, exasperated by this new burden to be carried on his shoulders, and flopped lifelessly back onto his bunk, barely missing smacking his head against the metal wall. "Peachy… just frickin' peachy!" A loud, abrasive sigh rushed through the air again. "Not only do we have a war to fight, we've got even more psychological shit to deal with. I'm messed up enough without literal voices in my head. What if this stuff never goes away, Heero? You're my friend and all, but my head is my head and it's no place for strangers.  
"If it's causing you physical pain, that could be dangerous," Heero commented.  
"Yeah, I know... I'm afraid of what it could degenerate into, but I don't know any way to get rid of it..."  
Or if he wanted to.  
"There's got to be a way. Otherwise," Heero mused, "suicide might be the only option. I wouldn't be able to stand it for long."  
The American was instantly revived to his sitting position at this, face and most his body covered in the shadow from his bunk. An alien glare lit in his eyes, one to rival Heero's own fiercely, and an involuntary snarl caught his lip in an unpleased frown. Heero flinched, realizing it was a frown, in both a bit of fear and confusion. He'd never seen Duo mad like this… this dark, broody angry that wasn't unlike his own. A pit of sludge like bitterness wallowed up in the pit of his stomach, channeled from Duo. He flinched again when Duo hissed, "You hypocritical asshole."   
He leaned forward, strangely threatening for a reasonably waifish boy bare-chested and wrapped up in a blanket from the waist down, and glared at Heero. A swirl of pain flickered in the bitterness Heero sensed for a second, and then was quickly smothered in more fuming and confused outlets of frustration.   
"I get ratted on for sarcastically saying I'd kill myself, which I wouldn't do for no good reason, but it's alright for anguished Heero Yuy to turn to suicide to solve a problem, huh? …You think you're the only one not having a good time in this war? Open your eyes and take a damned good look around. Not everybody's got a big sappy grin on, Heero, and half the time they do, it's so that other people don't start getting even more depressed than they already are or need to be. So I think you should just suck it up some more and stick it out like the rest of us are trying to do." Duo's anger wavered, diminishing quickly after it had begun to vent, like a racehorse quick to retire, and he settled back, this time less severe in his tone. "You're not the only soldier who has to fight, Heero, so don't be so blind about it."  
The Japanese boy stared back, uneased by the expression on the American's usually energetic, optimistic face lit with vigor that was as tried and gaunt and drawn as his own and the gurgling, exhausted sensation in his stomach that wasn't his. He managed not to break eye contact and used his stoic look to hide behind.  
"Okay?" Duo asked, like a collage professor following up on a confusing lecture.   
"Hai." Heero's head shied slightly off to the side, mentally smacking himself for letting himself get so self-pitying that he couldn't see Duo's point on his own… He'd gotten so numbed to the fact that everybody had been negatively affected by the war that he'd overlooked it until it became oblivious fact. Of course Duo was right, that damn idiot was right again… His face burned and he felt like a piece of shit, product of his own selfish perfectionism and self-destructive habits.  
"I'm sorry," he mumbled.  
Duo sighed. He'd finally come down from the adrenaline rush of his unexpected vent like a bad hangover and felt the stress causing his stomach to tense up around the diluted, hungry mix of only soup and water. He glanced back to Heero, hidden by his usual stoic façade, but obviously ashamed. "There's no reason to be sorry, Heero…" he said softly. "I kinda overreacted there. I haven't been feeling very good lately and I'm sorry I had to vent it out on you. I really am sorry."  
_**/How can he be so forgiving like that? /**_ Heero wondered.   
Duo waited for Heero to respond patiently, then felt a little hurt that he'd probably soured his tentative truce with Heero, maybe stomped out the possibility for a friendship between them for a couple weeks, and Heero still sat staring at his hands, no doubt thinking and beating himself up. He flickered his eyes back and forth uncertainly, and then came to a decision. He slipped off the bunk, kicking off the blankets, to pull out an short knife from under the mattress where he hid some of his weapons.  
Heero now was focused completely on what Duo was doing. "What is that for?"  
The American paused, his back turned to his comrade, and then turned around with a joker mask plastered cheaply to his face. "I going to test our theory," he said, flicking the blade out in the poor lighting of the bunkroom. "Come down." Slipping off his bunk as silently as he could, Duo straightened up and patted his hair down for a second so he wouldn't look like a slugabed. Heero complied complacently, and was standing in front of Duo; nervously and respectably spaced, though.  
"What are we doing?"  
"I wanna prove if you really do feel everything I do," Duo said darkly, giving no clue to what his intentions were with the weapon. Heero's eyes lit on the knife blade as he causally shifted it around and had a pang of sudden fear. Luckily, he didn't seem to sense any suicidal urges from Duo, so he let it continue. But his eyes never left his face, ready to   
"Hold out your arm," Duo ordered.  
Heero did, so he could see the light golden skin of his arm dashed with faded scar tissue here and there. Duo did the same, raising the blade to his own skin. He glanced back to Heero for a second, unsure of what he was really looking for in his dark Prussian eyes, maybe fear, maybe reassuring stoicism. They were flat. So he looked down at his work.  
With a flick of his wrist, he made a nice clean shallow cut over the outside of his arm so that blood came rushing to the surface to clot. He barely winced at all, because he was staring intently at Heero's arm, waiting for a reaction, whether it'd be nothing or that Heero dropped dead where he stood. After a minute when no physical cut appeared, Duo took a hold of Heero's loyally outstretched arm and stared at it closely. He snorted, being slightly disappointed. If he was going to be cursed like this, he wanted the full perks.  
Still turning the arm and prodding where the he'd fabled the cut to appear, Duo asked, "You still felt it though, right?"  
"Yeah."  
"So… you feel it, but it's not really physically happening to you," Duo concluded. His head was still bowed down so that his long braided hair, now sprouting thin flyaways from sleeping on it, slid over his shoulder to rest over his chest like some strange pet.  
The Japanese boy stared down at the back of the American's head. "That would explain why when you were drowning in the tub, I was still conscious."  
A few playful tsks were emitted from the longhaired brunette, as he dropped Heero's arm, finally dissatisfied enough to be satisfied. "Hmm…what a strange disease you've infected me with, Heero."  
"Hn," was all Heero could think of to comment with. He shifted uneasily, the incessant curious poking at his arm finally catching up with his patience, and tried to pull back from Duo. The American let go luckily soon enough so that it was one smooth, nonoffensive gesture. He groggily scratched at the tangled lump of hair at the nape of his neck and staggered back so that he sat down on Wufei's bunk. He hadn't made it before they'd left on the mission and the covers were lumped in one corner. Heero didn't move, still standing like a specter in the hallway.   
"Who did I hit?" Duo asked once he was settled down. "I remember smacking someone before I lost consciousness this morning. I hope I didn't hit Wufei, he'd have my hide for it—"  
"You hit me," Heero confessed, folding his arms, feeling it a necessary defense to keep Duo from getting under his skin. He tried to inject more lifelessness into his voice to hide the slight insecurities that he heard in it as well.   
Duo's face lit with an apologetic smile, trying to ease some good will back into his sour-faced comrade. He never very well that Heero never took any of it, like a patient rejects the wrong blood type, but he always had to give himself an A for effort. As soon as Duo got, "I'm sorry," off his lips, Heero's always-analytical voice broke in.  
"You were panicking; you would have hurt yourself if we let you continue."  
"Uh-huh… so me smacking really didn't rattle you that much. You still think like a solider," Duo said with a half-amused tilt of his lips that eyes upset him in a strange way and it was the only way he knew to suppress it. Heero took as treacherous. Maybe he was on edge or something, but the tone, the dim flash of teeth, the glint in the big violet  
"What do you mean by that." There was no question in his voice, just hostility.  
Duo furrowed his eyebrows at Heero's response, surprise that such an impersonal seeming person would take it so personally. "It's a fact, Heero. There's nothing wrong with it. You talk like… a soldier. You analyze what you hear and state it the way you analyze it. There's not much to it. You think in war terms, how to be efficient." He snorted light-heartedly. "There's nothing derogatory about it, okay?"  
Heero tightened his arms and grunted. It was all the answer Duo got. The American suddenly got a wish that he could feel Heero's emotion, that way he wouldn't be so damn fickle like this… this hostile, brutal, testosterone-fuming, I-know-ninety-nine-ways-to-shove-your-head-up-your-ass-so-don't-annoy-me kind of fickle that drove Duo to the edge and back but never soured his good feelings toward the Japanese pilot.  
"Sorry," Duo tried again.   
Staring back, the Japanese pilot smothered the frustrated but oddly content bubble in his stomach he knew was from Duo. He'd become amazingly effective in the short time it'd been going on to recognize what came from Duo and what didn't.   
The all-effective grunt was appropriate at this time, as the unease returned to his stomach. Even gnashing on Duo didn't get rid of it. He knew that as long as he stood here before the half-naked Duo, it would grow and seethe and breed in his stomach until it grew infectious like his laughter. The American was making himself visibly comfortable for coaxing Heero into conversation, which had happened. It hadn't been on Duo's usual topics, but it had been conversation nonetheless, and this pointed out how easily his defense mechanism could be hacked into by this pilot.  
Heero made a quick and cold decision to end the conversation. "You should get some sleep," he said. Duo nodded in response, rubbing some sleep from the corner of his eye. "You need to get back into normal sleeping rhythm."  
"Right," he agreed again, stretching his arms sleepily.  
Heero looked down at Duo's bare chest, pale in the yellow light… pale in any light for that matter. He finally realized how thin and breakable Duo looked, like he was a starving child in the streets of a tiny, run-down village, how vulnerable to attack and ruin his body seemed. Heero knew for a fact Duo could hold his own against any grown man extremely well, but it wasn't so much as pure, unadulterated strength as it was dynamic nerves, agility, and a near bastard-like recovering ability that made up for any lack of muscle he had. But even then, Duo wasn't at all physically incapable. Heero blinked, realizing just how long he'd been standing there, and hastily left the room on a silent and stiff note.   
The other pilot shut the door behind him, leaving Duo alone to shut the light off himself, then stagger back through the dark to find his bed, sighing to himself.   
He grumbled a thought in his head, slurred by this sudden pang of exhaustion that he hoped Heero didn't hear. For a moment, before turning around and returning to the warm cocoon of his bed, he pressed his ear to the door and could faintly hear Heero settling down on the couch. The American rubbed at the back of his head, then realized the thick presence of his braid was still there. Sitting quickly down on Wufei's bed, the nearest to him, he loosely, sleepily separated the three ribbons until they flowed down his back in a familiar warm sheet. Guiding himself off the bottom bunk in the dark with his eyes closed and by familiarity alone, he clamored back into his own bunk, slipping back into the blankets as quickly as he could, but the warmth he'd generated was long gone.  
"Great, now I have warm up all over…" he mumbled to himself as he drew the blanket over his shoulder and dove head first into a welcome emotionless black unconsciousness that was sleep. He prayed for no dreams, but doubted that God was even real to answer that prayer.  
  
  
Meanwhile, Heero lay on the couch in the comforting black that breathed around him, the blanket still kicked down at the foot from a few days before. He hadn't slept the entire day, this odd, paranoid feeling keeping him awake. The fear from watching Duo lie virtually dead in his arms, cold, blue and head lolling like a dead fish, a pale, ashen and stark contrast from the glowing life that came from him normally had come back to him after the sudden spike of pain that he'd sensed caused Duo to collapse with a vengeance. Not to mention the near psychotic worry that the odd psychic happenings had installed in him.  
Suddenly, the room became bitingly cold. He hadn't felt the cold in the apartment before, so when he started shivering, he thought it was odd, but finally resorted to pulling the blanket around his bony shoulders. It wasn't necessary for him to be worrying and cold at the same time, he concluded, even though he didn't feel he deserved much more than being warm on the couch.  
Staring off with sightless blue eyes into the dark, he began to drift off in thought, thinking about nothing, aching about everything, trying to minimize his world into one speck of light that he could concentrate on and ignore the rest. Accept the simple and mandatory and disregard the redundant.   
As Heero finally moved toward his version of restless, lifeless sleep, a sudden sound jerked him awake. It was so quiet that it jerked him awake with the worst kind of fear, the unknown, unjustified but still disturbing fear like the sound of a door opening somewhere far off. He leaned upward in the black, eyes searching as well as his ears for the sound, but, with his blood pounding in his ear, couldn't hear it. The Japanese pilot reluctantly laid down, then suddenly scented on it. Faintly, he could hear breathing in the back of his head. With a weary sigh, he realized that he was once again immersed in his American comrade's thoughts, but strangely heard him breath as he sleep.   
**_/Duo? / _**  
No answer.  
Lying on his back, Heero drew his eyebrows tightly together. This had never happened before…  
Suddenly, the unease that had plagued his tossing stomach died, and before he could think about the sudden breathing in his head, he was asleep as well… finally led into black.  
  
  
  
-------  
gaawd i take long to write.... I should take more sugar or something because I'm dead tired. it's only eleven, when i usually start writing, but now I can barely keep my eyes open and I'm telling myself just goooo tooo sleeep.... like in my history teacher's class, Mr. VanRanst, or Mr. V, or Mr. V-Ran, or Mr. Big Answer, whatever you prefer. He can _talk _and _talk_ and.... he'd go in to a boxing ring with the energizer bunny and it would be asking for like protein shakes and energy bars just to keep awake from all his talking. No offense, Mr. V, if your reading. yeah, hell if my history teacher wanders aroudn the interent looking for gundam wing yaoi stories to read. Now he might read _civil war_ yaoi stories... but that's still a stretch. Sorry it took so long but I'm working simenotaneously (damn, where's my dictionary when I need it?) on the second chapter for twelve and it's really draining to shift back and forth from complicated plot line to complicated plot line in a matter of seconds and keep the situations straight. One sentence for Basket Case, then one sentence for Twelve.... it _huuuuuurrttss_ my brrainn _hurrts_. thank you for hanging on for so long... thank you merci arigatou. I'm going to SLEEP!! No wonder why I wrote them sleeping at the very end, that's what _I _want to do! bye... oh and the title is one of the best jangly/melodic/cutesy/ballad-like songs ever, played by the awesome alt band the pixies, ever heard? okay, now bye. oh wait, I'm planning to draw pictures for this soon, probably when I wake up. over work myself? naw. okay. now. good. bye.  
  
  
Outside there's a boxcar waiting  
Outside the family stew  
Out by the fire breathing  
Outside we wait 'til face turns blue  
  
I know the nervous walking  
I know the dirty beard hangs  
Out by the boxcar waiting  
Take me away to nowhere plains  
  
There is a wait so long  
You'll never wait so long  
Here comes your man   
  
Big shake on the boxcar moving  
Big shake to the land that's falling down  
Is a wind makes a palm stop blowing  
A big, big stone fall and break my crown  
  
There is a wait so long  
You'll never wait so long  
Here comes your man   
  
There is a wait so long  
You'll never wait so long  
Here comes your man   
  
  



	6. Clean Up Before She Comes

Basket Case  
Chapter 6: Clean Up Before She Comes  
  
  
Shortly after she had departed from the pilots to her own room, the honey-tinted smile that held her face in victory growing by the second, Relena unzipped her bag and dumped out a menagerie of exotic colored glass bottles and odd feathered items and a prehistoric-looking book that spewed dust as it hit her bunk bed. She was careful to securely lock the door and clamor straight into her bed, which luckily had a curtain to keep prying Gundam pilot eyes out. The princess didn't even look over her new living space. It didn't matter much. Relena didn't expect to be staying long. As the garish colored items clinked and rolled when she sat down on the bed, she flipped her long hair behind her, staring down at the alien objects. How could these make it any better? she wondered. She bit her lip viciously.  
"…I know this seems wrong, but I can't wait for you forever, Heero," she whispered gently to herself, even though she was totally alone. She stoned her face for the unbelievable and dangerous as she placed the most important item in her lap, choked down a bitter regret, and determinedly flung open the large book to the first page of golden parchment, chipped and weakened by time.   
Odd words and ingredients popped up at her in alternately choppy and graceful printing, lifting a smell of incense and leaves to her nose. The cover itself was thick, sun-bleached leather blotted by ink stains and what appeared to chicken blood, or what she hoped was. For hours, she sat in the privacy of the small bedroom, paging through the incantations and remedies, looking for the right one. She was glad in a way that the other pilots were upset with her, that way they probably wouldn't invade on her important reading time.  
She bit her lip, coming across a rather sinister looking one, and quickly skipped it when the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Every once and a while she would pause to examine the bottles that Paegan had searched extensively to find on Earth. She wasn't exactly certain what she was searching for in the archives of voodoo witch generations gone past, but any general aphrodisiac probably would suffice.  
"No… no… no…"  
Another furious flip of the page. The golden-blonde girl huffed in the silence of her small apartment, darkened except for the dull yellow light overhead and unexplored. Her patience with this book was fading, and fading quick, hastened by the images of blue eyes and wild hair that made her even more fervent for reciprocation.   
Her eyes darted to the glowing clock in the corner, flashing a number, which Relena blinked and rubbed her eyes thoroughly to make sure was accurate. It wasn't a mirage. It was 12:25. After midnight. Her unrequited feelings were acting as a pretty good insomnia muse. Giving a grumble under her breath about working herself to death, she stared back down on the pages that seemed to glow in her lap.  
"No."  
Flip.  
"No."  
Flip.  
"…_Definitely not_!"  
Flip.  
"…wait."  
She had passed a page and almost frantically flipped back to examine it, something vaguely familiar catching her eye and afraid she'd never locate it again. She scratched at her head as she read a page filled with the chicken-scratchings of an odd language. Reading over the alien words once or twice, Relena recognized it as the spell she'd heard the gypsy lady cast for her.   
Very vividly, she could see the gypsy lighting one of her hairs and one of Heero's she'd scoured out of his dorm room once he'd fled for another mission and drop it ceremoniously into a wide bowl of what looked like silver gelatin. Once they'd hit the bowl, it had turned the entire thing red. She remembered seeing a flat face on the tanned gypsy woman, distressed by wrinkles, and she was unable to gauge her reaction but still got a bad, churning feeling in the pit of her stomach.  
She suddenly wondered if something had gone wrong with the spell.  
  
  
Duo woke up again, this time courtesy of a throbbing headache. Luckily, he was sure it was morning by now so he wouldn't be shoved back into bed by a stony mothering Heero Yuy to go back to sleep and have to toss and turn while his brain cells bashed against his skull. He snorted into his pillow of the thought of his Japanese comrade being an actual mother, staggering up in the morning cranky from morning sickness, with a loose teddy bear flannel pajamas and an irritated melon for a stomach, drinking orange juice straight from the carton, pulp and all. Stuffing his face into the pillow to muffle his tired laugher, he secretly hoped Heero wasn't listening in on that last thought. The aftermath wouldn't be pleasant. His smile grew against the starched fabric.  
The American finally yawned and sat up, stretching his bony fingers to the ceiling above him. His hair, which he'd unbraided when he'd woken up late in the night while racked with insomnia, was cascading down his back in a tangled mess. With a grumble, he reached out for his brush, but found he'd manage to kick it out of his bunk in the night and it lay on the floor, teasing him. He frowned and reached down.  
At the same time, outside, the other pilot threw his legs off the side of the couch and slid off to walk towards the bunk door, grumbling unhappily to himself as he took it upon himself to wake his comrade up. He was going to waste no time that could be used to get this mess cleared up. Brushing his fingers through his sleep-mussed hair, he staggered to the door, bones still claimed by sleep and a deep, undisturbed sleep at that, the kind that he'd been denied nearly every night of the war. As his fingers clenched around the doorknob, he noticed that the faint humming that was Duo's emotions in the back of his mind seemed to get sharper the closer he got. Now it was a bubbly, muddled content feeling that sleep had brought, rather than a vague warm sensation at back of his head.  
/_…Almost got it…_/ Heero heard Duo think.   
The door swung open, and Duo froze like a deer paralyzed by the glare of headlights, with his long chestnut hair hanging like his tail out into open space. The stoic, sleep-drained face of his comrade hovered in the doorway, cold Prussian eyes calculating him. Duo, embarrassed he'd been seen with his 'girl hair', flushed profusely and his stomach plummeted without him. He fumbled to get back under the blankets in his pinkish embarrassment. The slight shift in weight he made was enough to throw his balance off and Duo eeped loudly as he dropped like a sack of dead weight.  
/_Oh, shit!_ /  
Before Heero could think in reply, his arms were filled with a mass of panicked Duo, caught just as he slid off his bunk. The Japanese boy was assaulted with the adrenaline rush from both him and his friend pumping his veins, making him breathless and tense. Duo flinched like he had splattered on the floor, took in a bracing breath, and then opened his eyes in confusion.  
Wide, undisguised violet eyes shot straight up at him, and Heero thought he would die from looking at undiluted color they held. Duo's head was thrown back slightly over his arms, so that his insanely long hair was flung in all directions, his bangs a swirling chocolate mess over his forehead and some of his eyes. Daggers went through Heero's heart, ones that melted and left a warm, anxious jolt in his chest and sucked his mouth dry of moisture. Duo's dazed expression and face freeze famed in his mind, for the lack of a better word, was…  
**_ /Gorgeous. /_**  
The purple eyes widened. "Heero?"  
Heero looked like he'd swallowed a live squid and it was fighting up his throat again, face white as sheet. He'd thought that out loud! The Japanese boy was overwhelmed by panic and heat running to his face like an outbreak of disease, and he quickly put his friend onto his feet, though roughly and blindly and a face as red as it'd ever been. "Sorry," he muttered half-heartedly, Prussian eyes seemingly nailed to the floor.  
Duo blinked, shocked as hell to see his comrade so flushed and skin still crawling in a tingly rush, and then noticed how quickly he was moving towards the door. One hand anxiously shoving his hair behind his head, the American called out, "Hey—Heero, wait!" The Japanese boy only seemed to flinch under his disheveled hair and slink away faster.   
Suddenly, there was a blink of feedback in Duo's head, and the connection was broken. The fierce butterflies in Duo's stomach suddenly screamed in his nerves and fingernails dug into Heero's scarred skin.   
Heero spun around, big mortified blue eyes locked on him. "What?" he said, the frightened expression giving away the flat tone in his voice. Something smoldered in his expression, and Duo could see him lick his lips nervously and shift his center of gravity constantly. Too bad he'd been shut off from Heero's thoughts again, he thought bitterly. Else I'd understand... why...he said that.  
"Heero, you don't have to be afraid of me," the American started, fingers still bound around Heero's bicep, which twitched occasionally, he noticed.   
The expression on the Japanese pilots face was surprisingly unnerved and confused; a muddled, blurry-lined confusion that showed the average teeanger still hid under Heero's skin. Duo'd seen it once before, and instantly memorized it. It'd been that night… the night he thought he hated Heero completely...   
The Japanese boy suddenly flinched under his fingernails, more from confusion than from actually pain. Duo didn't have fingernails as long as Relena did. He was afraid of the sudden bitterness he felt from his friend.   
Duo took a deep breath, composing himself, and Heero calmed, sensing the bitterness hide somewhere and dull. "Heero, I ...uh...um, if there's something... you wanna talk to me about, I'm... always here, ya know." Again, his fingers trailed up to his ears in a nervous habit, digging his hair behind them. "Whatever you wanna… talk about… is fine with me. Whenever."  
"…I know," he replied.  
The American's eyes dropped, half disenchanted that the abrasive side was back and there was no further move from his friend to respond. Duo unwrenched his fingers from the pale gold arm and stood fidgeting with his eyes on the floor. His tongue was desperate for direction and conversation to break the guillotine silence. "Um…" he said while staring his pink feet, gesturing lifelessly to his hair, "…sorry 'bout not fixing my hair..."  
The stone eyes flickered. _**/…I like it. /**_ "It's fine."  
Duo's eyes lifted optimistically, but one eyebrow cocked in harsh skepticism, something he found hard to control sometimes, and Heero flinched again. _/What does he mean by that? --That my hair's okay or that he doesn't mind? He's the last person I'd expect to… like my hippie' hair… /_  
"Is that all?" Heero asked, butterfly-infested stomach lurching to escape, so he could get the haunting, surreal image of the long hair that seemed to come from nowhere out of his head. He was completely aware that in order for his comrade's hair to be as long as it was while braided, it had to be significantly longer while down, but it was like a punch to the stomach seeing it so… real. He needed to get out. It was going to suffocate him, make him do something stupid, otherwise.  
"Yeah," Duo said tiredly, waving it off, "that's it." The American turned toward his bunk, pale back streaming with chestnut, and rubbed at his temples with a grumble that if Heero had been paying attention, probably could have deciphered as, "Why the hell do I ever try?"  
Before Heero could even get his foot out the bunkroom door, the something sang out in the area of the living room. Both Gundam pilots in the apartment jerked their heads instinctively to the noise, their battle-trained ears unaccustomed to the tiny shrill of an old-fashioned Earth phone. Prussian eyes glanced at Duo one more time, and then he was out the door. Across the darkened room, the phone cried out feebly, the ringing choked by age. He picked it up out of the socket curiously, and glanced back over his shoulder at the bunkroom door. Blinking, he saw Duo glaring out the crack in the door, cheek pressed up to the doorframe and eyes as stony as his own had ever been. The American stared back him and then shut the door abrasively. Heero flinched slightly, then quickly pressed the reciever to his mouth.  
"Hello?"  
A honey voice he was all too familiar with grating on his eardrums returned. "Oh, hello, is this Heero?"  
"...Yeah."  
"Oh, hello Heero! Good morning." Relena giggled slightly on the other end. "I just called to see how you're doing. Doug or something is sick, right? Quatre told me before he left, but I can never get his name right—"  
"Duo," Heero stated, feeling something dangerously defensive whirl up in the pit of his stomach. "His name is _Duo_."  
"Oh, right. You didn't catch anything from him, did you Heero? That'd be awful, the two of you sick and so cooped up all alone… I know! Breakfast would cheer you up, wouldn't it?"  
Heero growled something low in the back of his throat to himself, something careless and unheard by the girl on the other end. "I guess," he mumbled out, staring down at the right threadbare cushion in the couch. "The food isn't like a restaurant up here, like on Earth, Relena. It's mostly freeze-dried and cafeteria food at best."  
But nothing seemed to dampen the hazy ring of sunshine that frustratingly hung around that girl, not even the prospect of powered food slopped in with manufactured water. A frown darkened on Heero's face instantly. "Oh, that's okay! It's not the food that makes the breakfast, it's the conversation. And I'm sure it's palatable at least."  
"Right…" Heero answered half-heartedly, voice a flat rumble. He was defeated and backed into a corner; he bitterly knew Relena would only prod and pester harder if he denied her a meal with him... Maybe Duo had been right, maybe everybody had been right... he could definitely feel her claws searching for a soft spot to dig into. Regret boiled up in his stomach.  
"Great!" The girl said happily, the feminine curl in the honey voice making him flinch with sudden regret. "I'll meet you down in the cafeteria soon. Bye bye…"  
Click.  
The Japanese boy slammed the receiver down and flopped onto the couch, the knot between his eyebrows returning with a vengeance. Anger boiled up in, mostly from frustration and the embarrassment he'd suffered a few minutes before. His face burned at the slightest memory of it… He barely had the patience to deal with her now, to deaden his face and tolerate a whole breakfast with her when he could be… what? Could be doing what? He suddenly asked himself. While his body sank into the tired couch, disheveled hair covering his eyes, the bunkroom door swung open with an audible squeak. Heero cocked his head up to stare at his comrade upside down.  
Duo, face stony and shadowed by his long, jagged bangs, moved shadowily out the bathroom door. He was already dressed in his long black jumper and priest collar, clinging to his cat-like body, and apparently soured up. Shutting the door silently, he paused for a moment, conscious that Heero was watching. His drawn-together eyebrows darkened his face and he moved silently and sullenly straight for the door. His hands dropped from his back to his sides after he snapped the hair band into place and his completed braid flapped at the small of his back. Not bothering Heero with eye contact, the American was out the door into the brightly lit hall of Peacemillion and was gone, leaving anger and bitterness like a disease in the air.   
_**/**__**What did I do?/**_ The Japanese boy stared at the door, stomach churning.   
Apologizing to Duo, that's what he _could _be doing. Something he said must have angered him, he thought vaguely to himself, though Heero wasn't sure what. He could be apologizing and returning the old truce they had created, so that he'd act like his old self, not this bitter ghost that fled from room to room avoiding him… Smiling instead of scowling at life with a dark look… maybe even teasing him again... causually hrowing innuendo his way and laughing when he got uncomfortable... Heero missed it deep in the pit of his stomach.   
He closed his eyes and sighed, being sucked into the couch cushions with the image of wide purple eyes burning in his retinas.  
  
  
******************  
i'm so sorry to keep you guys waiting soooo much. I'm just... very moody, I guess. Heh, it takes me forever to find the perfect time to write, otherwise I never like it and I end up doing it over and over. But today I promise you that I'll try to get another chapter out of me soon. If I don't, you can slap me over the head with a fish. A big slimey wet one, okay? I'm still working on fan art, too, which I'll have to find somewhere to post... dang... Oh, and while I'm talking, I have some movie recommendations.. South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, if you're old or mature enough and if you haven't seen it, it's great! I love the little brown-haired raggedy guy, The Mole, who tries to free terrance and philip. I thought he could have made a great Gundam Wing character, with his smart-ass French tone and that perfect line when he's checking off the supplies Cartmen and the rest brought and he goes, "Did you bring the 'butt for?'" "What's the 'butt for'?" "For pooping, silly." And then he puffs his little cigarette all dramatically and it was hilarious! Aw, but he dies! I have this wierd attraction to dead guys... go figure. Thank you and r&r please!! Oh... gotta go get the lyrics... *rummages through pocket, tosses out a few pounds of lint, then holds up lyrics* I didn't want to use another Nirvana song, it was meant to be a theme of green day, but it's such a beautiful song, I couldn't resist. Acoustic. Hmm, very pretty.  
  
  
Clean Up Before She Comes -- Nirvana  
  
Clean up before she comes   
Living in a dusty town   
  
There's something in her eyes, must be a smile from my mouth   
  
Twenty months has it all (getting older)  
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)  
I must be getting old (getting older)  
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)  
  
There's something in her eyes, must be a smile from my mouth   
  
Clean up the dusty town  
Living in a dusty town  
Clean up before she comes   
Living in a dusty town  
  
There's something in her eyes, must be a smile from my mouth   
  
I starting to getting old (getting older)  
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)  
I starting to getting old (getting older)  
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)  
I starting to getting old (getting older)  
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)  
I starting to getting old (getting older)  
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)  
I starting to getting old (getting older)  
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)  
I starting to getting old (getting older)  
I must be getting old (ate my vegetables)  
  
I'm starting to eat my vegetables  
  
  



End file.
